


Meeting Of Two Minds

by katling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author is salty, Because you've been warned, Bucky Barnes Gets a Hug, But that's not a bad thing, Civil War Team Iron Man, M/M, Minor Appearances or Mentions of Other MCU Characters, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Steve Friendly, Not Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Not Wanda Friendly, Pay attention to that tag, Protective Rhodey, Really not, Slow Burn, They Get Along, Winter Soldier As A Seperate Personality, not team Cap friendly, trolls will be summarily deleted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-06-07 04:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15210578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier are two halves of the same whole and after some early misunderstandings, they get along. They're not necessarily of two minds about everything but they agree about the important things.Canon divergent from just before the airport fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a conversation with a friend fueled by a couple of bottles of very nice Merlot and a lovely piece of Blue Stilton where we were alternately spitballing about what the Winter Soldier actually is and debating how Bucky overcame the conditioning. The idea we floated was that the Winter Soldier is a separate personality created by HYDRA's douchebaggery and that there was more than just those control words, that there was an overarching word beyond them that gave full control. Think of it as if the ten words wake up the Winter Soldier and put the metaphorical collar on and the single control word attaches the leash. The concept for this was that US HYDRA didn't know about the single overall control word and that made the ten control words weak. Anyway, you'll see what I mean in the fic. :D
> 
> I'm giving you two chapters first up because the first one is a bit weird. It's sort of the thoughts of BuckyAndWinterSolider combined. Also, it's _really_ short.

They’d never been free before. They came close after Washington, after they were let loose there. But not quite. That was why they ran. That was why they hid. Because they liked being free, even if this freedom wasn’t quite… right… and wanted to stay that way. They were good at hiding and that meant they’d walked away from HYDRA people trying to recapture them several times without the HYDRA people ever knowing they were there. Bucharest had been safe. HYDRA didn’t like Bucharest. They didn’t know why and didn’t much care because they’d been safe.

Then _he’d_ come. They hadn’t known what to think, still too entangled and tied up and meshed together, and had drifted along in _his_ wake. Doing what _he_ did, following _his_ lead. They knew it probably wasn’t the right thing to do but they hadn’t known what else they should do. Hadn’t known _how_ to know what else to do, their meshed thoughts too confused and contradictory.

Then they’d been captured and the words had come with the false psychologist. They fought then, fought many people and had almost gotten away before _he_ got there again. _He_ let them centre themselves but it was different this time. It took them a while to realise what had changed and when they did, they smiled.

They were free.

The words had always worked but the words always needed the Word to keep control. In Washington there hadn’t been a Word but that mission hadn’t finished the way it should have and maybe the lack of the Word had been why _he_ had been able to break through and set them almost free. But this time, this second time of the words not coming with the Word… oh, this time it was different.

They were free.

They could feel inside themselves that the words would no longer bind them, no longer be their collar and leash. The Word could not command them. 

They were _free_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we get into the action.
> 
> Bucky and the Winter Soldier have a little chat and the whole thing at the airport takes a severe turn to the left.

_We shouldn’t stay here._

Bucky grimaced slightly, knowing the Soldier was right. They were holed up in an empty warehouse on the edges of an airport, waiting for some people Stevie knew. Normally that would have been enough for him to trust them but the past few hours had proven that this Stevie wasn’t the Stevie he remembered. The Stevie he remembered would never have been so cavalier with other people’s lives.

And he did remember now. Mostly anyway. Things had been… blurry after Washington, he and the Soldier still so entangled together, each one’s personality overlapping and smothering the other’s, leading to bickering and arguing and misunderstandings. But since Berlin, since the psychologist who wasn’t a psychologist had said the words to trigger the Soldier to take over but without the Word, that one controlling word… they weren’t confused anymore. Somehow that had done the last bit needed to free them and separate them. Well, as much as they could be separated considering they inhabited the same brain and the same body.

Not that Bucky really resented that. The Soldier _was_ him after all. Or the him that HYDRA had wanted him to be. Sort of. More or less. He didn’t know how the Soldier had been created, he just knew that the Soldier had risen and taken the reins when things had gotten bad and somehow that had resulted in the words and the Word giving the Soldier full control with Bucky able to do nothing. But the Soldier’s creation also meant that Bucky had been left intact. He’d been helpless, not gone, and that made all the difference.

_I didn’t know._

Bucky ignored the sulky comment because they’d already had that argument several times since they’d first shaken the chains partially loose in DC. The Soldier had been treated like a tool, a weapon, and he’d reacted like one because he hadn’t known any better. He’d been as wary and frightened of Bucky as Bucky had been of him. It had only been after they’d been able to talk, to realise they weren’t separate, just different parts of a whole, that the Soldier had dipped into Bucky’s knowledge of legalities, morals and ethics and come to his own conclusions. The Soldier was still far more ruthless than Bucky, more inclined to a quick violent solution, but he knew right from wrong now.

_We should go. We don’t want or need to be a part of this shitshow._

Bucky sighed. He didn’t disagree, he just didn’t know where they should go.

_Find the man._

Bucky frowned, uncertain of what the Soldier meant, then a recent memory floated across their mind. A memory of them fighting a man in a suit with a red and gold gauntlet who disassembled their weapon with an ease that had been astonishing.

_Him. Stark._

Bucky sighed softly, so as not to draw attention, as he realised the underlying intent of the Soldier. Just as well he paid attention to the world as it was now. _You can’t have him. I’m pretty sure he’s with that Pepper Potts woman._

He felt the Soldier’s irritation. _Not that. Well, yes, that. But not now. He has power and influence._

_We killed his parents._

_I killed his parents, if you want to be precise._

_I don’t think Stevie’s told him about it._

The Soldier went silent and still for a moment then Bucky heard him growl angrily. _The shit. Why do you like him so much? He’s annoying._

_He’s always been annoying. It’s just… he was always so small so his annoying was kinda funny. And… useless, you know. Impotent._

_Not anymore. ___

___…Yeah._ _ _

__As they watched, Stevie was momentarily distracted and he and the guy called Sam hurried over to the other side of the warehouse. Bucky took the opportunity to get up and slip away, sliding out of a side door and heading for the main terminal where he could see some activity going on. When he got closer, he saw that it was Stark, only this time he was wearing the Iron Man suit. Beside him was another man in a similar metal suit, this one grey and blue, and they were talking to some police officers. One of the officers caught sight of him and gestured as he said something to Stark._ _

__Bucky dropped the weapon he was carrying to the ground and held his hands up. “I surrender.”_ _

__That seemed to surprise all of them, though Stark took it with more aplomb than anyone else. He walked over, the other man in a metal suit following him in a way that told Bucky that any wrong move he made was going to end in a lot of pain._ _

__“You’re surrendering?” Stark said, looking and sounding slightly suspicious._ _

__Bucky nodded._ _

__“What about Rogers?” the other man demanded._ _

__“They’re in a warehouse back that way,” Bucky said, gesturing with his head. “They’re waiting for some other people.”_ _

__Stark’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”_ _

__“Siberia,” Bucky said. “There’s a HYDRA base in Siberia that has more Winter Soldiers in cryo. The guy who set the bomb and who set the Winter Soldier off in Berlin is planning on reviving them and letting them loose. He’s heading there now.”_ _

__“Shit,” Stark said. “Where in Siberia?”_ _

__Bucky rattled off the coordinates and relaxed when Stark immediately passed on the information to the authorities, telling them to get a visual of the psychologist from the Berlin facility and send it to the Siberian authorities so they could stop the guy at the airport._ _

__“There’s something else,” Bucky said. “Something Stevie hasn’t told you but I ain’t sure this is the time or place for it. It’s… bad.”_ _

__That got him two very long, weighty looks from the men standing in front of him then Stark grimaced. “Okay, we’ll wait. This mess comes first.”_ _

__Stark waved the police over and grabbed their map, getting Bucky to point out where Stevie and the others were. Once that was done, a strange looking man whom Stark called Vision took Bucky into custody and he was escorted away._ _

__It was several hours later when an exhausted looking Stark and the other man, whom he’d discovered was called Rhodes, finally came to see him. Bucky had been taken to the same facility he’d escaped from in Berlin, though this time he was put in a more secure cell in a basement level. He didn’t mind though as it had given both him and the Soldier enough of a sense of security to actually get some sleep._ _

__“Alright,” Stark said. “What’s this bad news you have to tell me?”_ _

__Bucky stalled then, uncertain as to whether there was any kind way of wording it. He then sighed and just blurted it out. “I… I killed your parents.”_ _

__He felt himself then abruptly shunted aside in his own mind. His irritated protests went ignored as the Soldier took control. He saw the moment Stark realised even through his confusion and shock that something had changed._ _

__“Bucky didn’t kill your parents,” the Soldier growled. “ _I_ did.”_ _

__Stark blinked and Rhodes placed a hand on his shoulder. “What the hell?”_ _

__Rhodes stepped forward. “Who are we speaking to right now?”_ _

__“The Soldier,” he said with a shrug. “That’s what Bucky calls me. It’s as good a name as any. HYDRA assigned me to kill Howard Stark. If there was anyone else with him, they were to die as well. No loose strings.”_ _

__Bucky managed to wrest control back at that moment. “Sorry,” he said with some frustration. “After… the last time I was here, things have changed with him. He’s… we’re…” He sighed. “It’s complicated.”_ _

__Stark was starting to look stricken and his breathing was rapidly increasing. Rhodes gave him a long look then turned his concentration entirely on his friend. He got Stark sitting down on a bench a little way down the corridor and talked to him quietly until Stark looked less wild-eyed and ready to kill someone or something. Then Rhodes returned to Bucky’s cell._ _

__“So… you and the Winter Soldier… cohabite?”_ _

__Bucky nodded. “We always have but the words… the trigger words… they used to give him control. But there was another word that gave the handlers overall control. Pierce never used it in Washington DC and that… made things difficult, especially once I recognised Stevie and pushed forward. Normally, I’d be stopped but then I wasn’t and we were both kind of… there at the same time. It wasn’t until Zemo used the words here that things somehow sorted themselves out. I don’t know how.”_ _

__“And the… Soldier?”_ _

__“I’ve explained the law and morals and shit to him,” Bucky said. “He... understands. He thinks they’re a bit limiting and stupid in places but he understands the necessity of abiding by them.”_ _

__“You’re less… confused than we expected?” Rhodes said, his eyes narrowed._ _

__Bucky gave a hollow laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to have a break down when I get the chance but… the Soldier doesn’t understand how to handle this stuff. _I_ barely understand it. I gotta keep it together.” He scrubbed his face with his flesh hand. “But I’ve been awake when the Soldier was active. Couldn’t do shit. I was just stuck in my own mind. But… I know the world’s changed.”_ _

__“Explain Bucharest then,” Rhodes said in a tone that had Bucky almost automatically snapping to attention. Rhodes looked amused. “At ease, Sergeant. Just tell me what happened from your point of view.”_ _

__Bucky blinked. “You military?”_ _

__“Air Force. Lieutenant Colonel.”_ _

__Bucky relaxed at that information. “I… Bucharest… HYDRA don’t like Bucharest. I don’t know why. That’s why I knew I was safe there. I was… trying to get my head on straight, trying to untangle us, but everything was always… blurry in there. Me and the Soldier trying to occupy the same place and it made everything… hard. Hard to think, hard to remember. Then… Stevie was there and he was tellin’ me that soldiers were comin’ to kill me and…” He rubbed his forehead, remembering how confused he’d been. “I barely remembered Stevie, let alone whether what he was sayin’ could be true or not. So I just… kinda let the Soldier take partial control ‘cause he’s better at simplifying things.”_ _

__He grimaced, aware that his distress had let his accent slip and of Rhodes’ expression that was half understanding and half highly unimpressed. “I know I shoulda said somethin’ or stopped or… anythin’ really instead of what I did but… I just wasn’t sure what was goin’ on. Then we were brought here and that Zemo fella came and said the trigger words and things got real confusin’ because they worked then they didn’t. The Soldier took control and… I knew something was different but it wasn’t until we stopped again that I… that we figured out what it was.”_ _

__“And you decided to turn yourself in?”_ _

__Bucky nodded. “Me and the Soldier talked. Stevie… ain’t what I remember, even from after he got big. Something’s not right with him. The Soldier doesn’t like him either. He suggested we turn ourselves in to Stark.”_ _

__“Why Tony?”_ _

__Bucky rolled his eyes then very reluctantly admitted. “The Soldier likes him.”_ _

__Rhodes’ eyebrow went up. “Beg pardon?”_ _

__“He fought us, here, before,” Bucky replied. “He impressed the Soldier and… he liked the way Stark disassembled our gun so quickly.” He gave Rhodes a long-suffering look. “He _likes_ Stark.”_ _

__“That’s…” Rhodes broke off as though he couldn’t find the right word._ _

__“Weird. Probably inappropriate, especially given the circumstances. And exhausting from my end,” Bucky replied. He felt a wave of exhaustion flood through him now that he’d finally told Stark what he… they’d… done. He rubbed his forehead again. “Yeah.”_ _

__Rhodes shook his head. “Right. Okay. Get some rest, Sergeant. I’m not sure entirely what’s going to happen but we’ve got lawyers working for you.”_ _

__Bucky winced. “Stark’s lawyers? Isn’t that…” He sighed. “He shouldn’t hafta do that for me. I killed his parents.”_ _

__Rhodes gave him an approving look. “You may be right but given what the circumstances actually are with you and the Soldier, I don’t think he’d want you thrown to the wolves either.”_ _

__Bucky nodded. “I ain’t gonna argue and I’ll do whatever’s needed. I just… don’t want to end up in HYDRA’s hands again.”_ _

__“That will not happen,” Rhodes said firmly enough that even the Soldier mostly believed him._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later and Bucky's ready to join the Avengers. And so is the Winter Soldier. The first person he meets? Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will freely admit straight up that I am terrible at replying to comments but I do read them all and I love all of them! So thank you for all your wonderful comments.<3

_**Two years later** _

Bucky looked around with interest as he walked in the door of the Avengers Compound. He could hear the Soldier – or Winter as he’d decided he liked to be called – assessing the strengths and weakness of the place in the back of his mind but he didn’t pay much attention. If there was anything he or anyone else needed to know, Winter would let him know. Or shove his way forward if it was important enough, though he didn’t do that as often now that they’d gotten better at communicating and sharing their mutual body over the last couple of years. As long as Winter knew he wasn’t being ignored, he was usually content to wait until he was needed. He didn’t have as much patience with social situations – or much interest in them either – and generally left those to Bucky.

There was someone waiting for him over near the door that lead further into the Compound and both Bucky and Winter looked him over. Male, a little shorter than he was, nice shoulders, trim waist…

_Great ass_ , Winter said.

The man turned and Bucky fought to control his wince when he realised they’d been checking out Tony Stark.

_Doesn’t change the fact he has a great ass_ , Winter murmured, his amusement obvious.

Bucky and Winter still disagreed on precisely how much guilt and remorse they should feel regarding Stark’s parents. _Bucky_ felt guilty. Winter just shrugged and said it had been a mission and _he_ hadn’t know who the targets were other than just being targets. It made sense given what Winter had been like back then, a weapon forged out of pain and terror and anger, but it was still the source of most of their current arguments.

“Barnes,” Stark said in a neutral tone and Bucky could see the myriad of emotions that flitted across his face before he settled back into neutrality. “Winter.”

Bucky was a little startled that Stark so easily acknowledged _both_ of them. Even his shrinks had taken time to learn that. Winter felt almost smugly pleased and that was enough to make Bucky shrug off the moment of shock.

“Mr Stark,” he said, a little awkwardly.

Stark made a complex sort of expression. “Call me Tony. Mr Stark is for business.” He flipped a hand dismissively at the subject of business then his gaze sharpened. “So what do I call you? As in you plural. Both of you?”

“Uh… he’s Winter. I’m… James. Or Bucky.” Bucky grimaced. “Either one.”

“That was conclusive,” Stark… Tony… said wryly.

Bucky sighed. “I was a little more messed up than I thought. Bucky… sometimes I don’t really remember who he was. But I was never really James either, except to my Mom and Dad. Or my teachers on the first day of school.”

“Makes sense,” Tony said. He cocked his head slightly. “So both of you want to join the Avengers. Why?”

Bucky was silent for a moment. “I… we… killed a lot of people and we can’t ever change that or make up for it. We can’t bring back the dead. We can’t make it right to you or anyone else we hurt. But we can… one of the shrinks put it as – we can go on as we mean to be. Better.”

To his surprise, Tony didn’t dismiss what he’d said or treat it with suspicion. He seemed to turn it over in his mind then he nodded. “Good reason.” 

He looked over at the empty sleeve where Bucky’s metal arm used to be. It had been removed a year ago when it had started to malfunction. They’d been offered repairs but Bucky, with Winter’s agreement, had asked if it could be removed. It was heavy, often painful and a bad reminder of what they had once been. Once it had been gone and they’d recovered from the surgery, things had gotten easier in therapy.

“Got something to replace that,” Tony said with a nod. “They sent me the old arm and all the x-rays and scans and shit. It’s probably going to take some more surgery to clean up the mess HYDRA made of your chest and shoulder but you’re going to need a second arm if you want to do this.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, they told me. Not the details but that arrangements had been made.” He hesitated. “You, uh… don’t have to do this, you know. If me being here, me being an Avenger isn’t going to be good for you then you can tell me to fuck off.”

Tony looked amused. “So Rhodey was telling the truth.”

Bucky blinked then remembered what he’d said to Rhodes back in Berlin a couple of years ago. 

“Don’t worry,” Tony continued. “You’re not the only one who’s been having therapy. Rhodey and Pepper finally convinced me I needed it.” He shrugged. “I knew anyway but there’s nothing like having people you thought were friends stab you in the back while the guy who should be your enemy is the decent one to point out that maybe you need to rethink what you’re doing and being stubborn about.” He looked ruefully amused. “It’s been… good for me. So, don’t worry, Tastee Freez, I’m actually good with this. Besides, I was a weapons manufacturer. If anyone was going to be able to understand the difference between the weapon and the one doing the firing of said weapon, it’s me. I hate HYDRA and blame _them_ for killing my Mom and Dad, not you or Winter.”

Bucky didn’t realise how much he’d needed to hear those words, to see that they were _meant_ , not just platitudes, to feel that absolution wash over him, until he felt himself start to shake and his knees buckled. Tony looked alarmed and started to head over to him but Winter quickly shoved him back with a sort of exasperated mental roll of his eyes.

“He forgets he was as much a weapon as I was even if he wasn’t the one doing the killing,” Winter said, bringing Tony to a halt.

Not that Tony looked wary or frightened. Instead, he looked intrigued and both Winter and Bucky shivered under his intense gaze.

“Winter, I presume,” he said. “We… didn’t really meet last time.”

“It wasn’t the best circumstances,” Winter said with a shrug.

“True.” Tony cocked his head. “Is Bucky okay?”

Winter nodded. “He’s freaking out a little but he’ll be fine.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Freaking out about…?”

“He didn’t think you’d ever forgive us.”

Understanding grew on Tony’s face and he nodded slightly. “Ah. Yeah, well, for a while there I didn’t think I’d forgive you either. But I kind of sorted it all out when I was dealing with all the shit involving Maximoff.”

Winter made a sour noise. “ _HYDRA_ ,” he growled.

“Whoa, down boy,” Tony said, still looking amused. “We know. I’m not sure if you saw that shitstorm but some hackers got into Sokovia’s systems as well as the SHIELD data dump and yanked out everything they could find about her and her brother. Pre-HYDRA and everything.”

Winter took a deep breath and calmed down. “They were picky about what they let us see. I heard she got taken back to Sokovia after having her powers bound but that was about it.”

“Yeah, she was executed by them.”

Tony’s expression indicated he was more than a little conflicted about that but Winter didn’t have the same kind of qualms.

“Good.”

He wouldn’t admit to anyone other than Bucky that he was relieved when Tony just looked amused at that admission.

“Blood-thirsty.”

“Yep.”

_I’m okay now_ , Bucky said deep in his mind and Winter sighed.

_Yeah, fine, take over just as things are getting good._

_Will you just…_

Bucky sighed when he realised that Winter was mostly making fun of him and shifted forward, taking over from Winter, who drifted back in their mind with a snicker.

“Back with us, Buckster?”

Bucky smiled wanly at Tony. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Tony waved a hand. “Eh, don’t worry about it. At least you have someone who can steer the ship while you freak out. I can think of times I wouldn’t have minded that.”

“It does have its advantages,” Bucky admitted. 

“Let me show you around,” Tony said, jerking his head towards the rest of the building. “Your stuff arrived this morning but we haven’t picked a room or anything. There are a few free so you can make your own choice.”

Bucky nodded and followed Tony through the doors. He was aware of the fact that other than the few sentences exchanged about Maximoff, all three of them had avoided the subject of Stevie and the rest of the Rogues but he was fine with that. He didn’t really want his first conversation with Tony to be about them anyway. He could ask someone else later.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few people asked about what happened to the Rogues? Well, here's your answer. Bucky has a chat to Rhodes about all of that because it's not something he wanted to talk to Tony about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a few more 'not friendly' tags as of this chapter and frankly for the next chapter too. So, you know, pay attention to the tags and remember... the author is salty. :D

He didn’t end up asking the question of Tony at all and not (just) because even the merest thought of it made Winter threaten to take over and not let him back in control for a while. And, okay, he could agree with Winter’s reasoning – why ask that question of Tony and risk making him unhappy when there are other people he could ask, who could probably give him more pithy answers.

That was why he asked Rhodes the next time they were alone in the training room.

They’d finished sparring about ten minutes ago and had been cooling down, drinking water and just idly chatting about nothing in particular when Bucky decided to go with it.

“What happened to them?”

Rhodes didn’t pretend to not know what he was talking about. He did raise a judgemental eyebrow and that assessing gaze that he’d been starting lose around Bucky was back in full force. Bucky didn’t mind. The question was one that he needed to ask but he understood that it would make Rhodes suspicious. When it came to Tony the man was a mix of exasperated mother hen and ferocious Rottweiler.

“They didn’t tell you?” Rhodes asked, wary and clearly assessing Bucky to try and work out why he’d asked this question right now.

Bucky shook his head. “I asked a couple of times but they didn’t think it was conducive to my healing at the time then I…” He shrugged. “Just stopped asking. I know I could check on the internet but… I know that’s not always accurate, especially if you end up on the wrong sites.”

“Then why ask me?”

“Because I sure as shit wasn’t going to ask Tony and it seemed a little… I don’t know… out of place, maybe, to ask FRIDAY.” Bucky shrugged again. “You seemed like the best option.”

Rhodes made a small, thoughtful sound then nodded once. “Tony said he told you what happened to Maximoff.”

Bucky nodded. “Yep. Good riddance to bad HYDRA trash. That’s from both of us.”

Rhodes _almost_ cracked a smile. “Lang went back to prison to serve out the rest of his original sentence because the dumb piece of shit didn’t think for one second that leaving the state, let alone the country, would count as breaching his parole conditions. Germany wanted to throw the book at him for his illegal entry into their country but eventually decided to simply declare him _persona non grata_. Given that the rest of the EU immediately followed suit, we suspect there was some sort of behind the scenes deal done.”

Bucky nodded, even though he really didn’t know who Lang was beyond being one of the people Stevie and Sam Wilson had called in. Rhodes was clearly going to tell this in his own way and in his own damn time and Bucky was okay with that. It would give him a full picture and to be honest, Rhodes kind of looked this was something he wanted to get off his chest.

“Barton’s also been declared _persona non grata_ by Germany and the rest of the EU,” Rhodes continued. “Vision and Tony were going to press charges for the attack on the Compound but decided not to after Laura divorced his ass and got his parental rights yanked. They figured that was punishment enough. Then new SHIELD refused to touch him and the United Nations Enhanced Taskforce won’t have anything to do with him since he’s not actually, you know, Enhanced in any way. He disappeared off the radar about a year ago but was recently found in Thailand where he spends most of his time getting drunk and the rest of it earning money doing bow and arrow tricks for the tourists.”

Bucky almost winced but then decided he really didn’t know enough about the situation or the man in question. Also, he’d heard about the attack on the Compound and having been here for a week now, he had no idea why Maximoff would have considered it a prison. It was pretty damn nice. Besides, she’d been under investigation for what had happened in Lagos. You’d have thought she’d have had the sense to keep her head down until that was cleared up.

“Wilson’s currently serving five to ten in a Romanian prison for his part in the debacle in Bucharest,” Rhodes said implacably. “Once he’s done with that, he’ll be deported because like Lang and Barton, he’s been declared _persona non grata_ in Romania, Germany and the rest of the EU. The US military is still deciding whether they’ll charge him for the theft of the Falcon wings. I think they’re enjoying hanging that over his head given how much of a bad name he’s given them overseas. Nigeria are also making noises about seeking extradition for him for his part in the mess in Lagos.”

Bucky _did_ wince at that because he was honestly as much to blame for the mess in Bucharest as either Stevie or Sam. Probably more so than Sam. And here he was, sitting pretty in the Compound in the United States, a free man.

“As for your BFF,” Rhodes said, in a voice that could cut glass. “He got twenty years in the special Enhanced prison they built in Europe but he keeps adding more time to it with his repeated escape attempts. The Europeans are big on rehabilitation and reformation when it comes to their prisons but he’s managing to annoy even them with his stubborn refusal to get his head out of his ass. The US Army has given him a dishonourable discharge, which was more for show than anything else since there’s no actual record of him being a member of the US Armed Forces at all.”

Bucky sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. “And I’m a free man.”

Rhodes eyed him somewhat inscrutably for a long moment. “Technically, you’re two free men, neither of whom was entirely in control during what happened in Bucharest and acting entirely on conditioning and some pretty shitty training in Berlin. You’re also the one who surrendered once he was more or less in his right mind and turned the others in.” Now he softened just a bit. “You’re also the one who told Tony the truth at the first opportunity. You didn’t hide what you’d done nor did you try and use it as a bargaining chip or as an excuse. You owned up, you owned your actions, and that counts for a lot in my books.”

“Tony said he forgave me,” Bucky said, without really knowing why.

Rhodes’ smile was wry. “Yeah, he told me. Also told me you had a bit of a wibbly over it and Winter had to come out and prop you up.”

Bucky breathed out a soft laugh. “Yeah, pretty much. Not sure we deserve his forgiveness but I… both of us… will take it. Especially since it was pretty obvious he meant it. It wasn’t just words.”

“The therapy helped,” Rhodes said then his voice hardened. “And if Rogers had just told him straight up when he found out during the DC mess, maybe Bucharest could have been avoided.”

Bucky winced.

 _He’s got a point,_ Winter murmured in his mind.

_I know. Don’t know what Stevie was thinking._

“I wish I could explain that,” he said out loud.

Rhodes sighed. “Not your mess to explain, Barnes.” He cocked his head slightly. “I have to admit, I was expecting a different reaction.”

Now it was Bucky’s turn to sigh and he scrubbed his face with his hand. “If you were expecting me to get all indignant…” He grimaced. “I don’t know what’s gone wrong with Stevie. I wish I had an answer to that for my own peace of mind, let alone anyone else. Unfortunately, there’s enough of my brain that’s still swiss cheese that I can’t tell you whether Stevie was always like that and it was just him being small that made him so ineffectual or whether the serum really did something to his head. I wanna think it’s the serum because… well, for a lot of reasons but some murky part of me up here…” He tapped the side of his head. “…thinks maybe he was always like that but being small just meant that he couldn’t do any damage.”

He came to an abrupt halt, aware that his breathing rate was starting to pick up into something less calm than it ought to be and Winter was lurking closer than he normally did. He carefully drew in several deep breaths and when he looked over at Rhodes, he saw the man was watching him carefully but not in a way that suggested he was worried Bucky was about to go off the deep end. More that he was concerned and waiting to see what, if anything, he might need to do to help.

“Sorry,” Bucky said with a grimace. “Guess I’ve been wanting to say that for longer than I thought.”

Rhodes’ concerned expression faded into something more amused. “You’re worried people will tar you with the same brush as Rogers since you also have a version of the serum.”

Bucky nodded, feeling a little ashamed about that. “Yeah, guess so.”

“You’ve really been avoiding the news, haven’t you?”

“Kind of,” Bucky said with a shrug. “It was pretty negative at first and I… didn’t need that. Made me feel like shit and got Winter riled up. My head didn’t need either one.”

Rhodes nodded. “Makes sense. The veterans’ groups took up your cause a few months into the confusion. They pointed out you had essentially been a POW since World War 2 and should be treated as such. That changed the way a lot of people viewed your situation.”

Bucky nodded. “I know my therapist approved some information about my treatment being released.”

“She did,” Rhodes replied. “One of the things that came out in Rogers’ trial was that not only had SHIELD been negligent in getting him up to speed in all but the most superficial changes in the world in the seventy years he’d been asleep, he hadn’t made any effort to do so himself, except for a few pop culture references. It’s part of the reason why he only got twenty years instead of the steeper sentence that a lot of people were pushing for and why part of his sentence is an education program. People then started to get worried about you so your therapist organised for an overview of your situation and treatment to be released, including that not only were you more aware of the changes that had happened even while Winter was in charge, you were actively educating yourself alongside participating in the education program that had been set out for you.”

Rhodes paused then grinned at him. “She may also have let slip your fascination with all things sci-fi and tech related.”

Bucky smiled wryly. “She got my approval for the photo.”

Rhodes chuckled at that and Bucky couldn’t help but join in. The photo had been a hit around the world. A candid shot taken by his therapist of him watching reruns of the 60s Star Trek show with a tablet on his lap where he was clearly looking up references from the show. Bucky hadn’t been all that sure about it when his therapist had sought his permission to release the photo but had eventually agreed. People seemed unaccountably delighted that he was a bit of a science nerd.

“Do people not know that the last time I went on a date, I took her to the Stark Expo?” he said.

Rhodes’ gave a bark of laughter. “We should get you a twitter account so you can tell them that.” He then sobered. “Most people have been able to separate you and Rogers pretty well. A lot of them have sympathy for Rogers while still condemning his actions.”

Bucky gave Rhodes a narrow look. “You do.”

Rhodes sighed then nodded. “I get it, you know. I get his panic and his fear and all of that. I probably felt something pretty damn similar when Tony went missing in Afghanistan and I sure as hell had the same desperate _need_ to find him and protect him as Rogers did for you. The difference between us is that I went through the proper channels to search for him. Yeah, I fought. I had to pull in just about every debt I’ve ever been owed to keep the search open and running for three months. I played dirty a few times as the weeks started ticking by, I had to threaten to resign my commission, to go public, to play a PR war that the military wouldn’t win because I’d have had all of Pepper and through her, Stark Industries’ backing behind me. But ultimately, I stayed within the lines and I used the system to work _for_ me. I didn’t fight the system and I sure as hell didn’t tell the system to go fuck itself.”

Bucky nodded slowly. “Would doing something similar have worked for Stevie?”

“Hell yeah!” Rhodes said. “Especially if he’d told Tony the truth straight up and given him the time to work through his grief.” He shook his head. “If Tony and Rogers had taken a stand together, either for you or in regards to the Accords, they could have moved the entire goddamn world. But Rogers refused to trust Tony for whatever reason and, well, look what happened.”

Bucky sighed. “Yeah, look what happened.”

Rhodes gripped his shoulder. “Look, you and Winter did the right thing and you’ve continued to do the right thing. That’s all you can do. You can’t take responsibility for Rogers’ mistakes. He’s not a small, sick kid anymore. He’s got to learn to stand up and shoulder the responsibility for his own actions.”

_He’s right, you know. And I’m not just saying that because I don’t like Rogers._

Bucky sighed. “I know,” he said in reply to both Rhodes and Winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more on what happened to Bucky in the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time it was what happened to the Rogues, now it's all about what happened to Bucky.
> 
> I freely confess I know very little about law and how it deals with psychology so if I got anything wrong, let's just say we're going with MCU logic. :D

“So, how the hell _did_ you get off?”

Jessica Jones sure as hell packed a punch, both figuratively as well as literally. It was kind of why Bucky _and_ Winter liked her. She’d never tiptoed around their dual status just as she’d never held back when they were sparring, no matter who she was facing in the ring – Bucky or Winter. She was also one of the few people he’d met who wasn’t wary of Winter. 

He sighed. “I didn’t get off. There was a trial and everything.”

“Where you got found not guilty on account of being mentally incompetent,” she said, her eyes narrow and suspicious. “Which you’re clearly not.”

Just because Bucky and Winter liked Jessica doesn’t mean she returned the sentiment. Bucky had always had the impression that she _wanted_ to like them and she was _trying_ to like them but she wanted all the details first. He also suspected that some very bad things had happened to her in the past and she was suspicious of people in general as a result. 

The only person he could think of that she’d liked straight off the bat was, weirdly enough, Tony. The pair of them bickered and bantered and Tony invariably tried to throw money at her in his confusion about being liked, which she then threw right back at him with tart comments about liking _him_ , not his money and he could just learn to deal with it. They were also insanely protective of each other for reasons they seemed to know about but wouldn’t discuss with anyone else. Though everyone else seemed to know anyway.

“Mentally incompetent means something a little different in the legal field,” Matt Murdock said with faint amusement from where he was reading a braille book on the couch. 

Bucky and Jessica were in the kitchen, where Bucky was making sandwiches for everyone to test out the dexterity and fine motor control in his new arm and Jessica was eying him with suspicion and pretending to help. Luke Cage was sitting at the table that no one ever really used, poring over Tony’s latest designs for a supersuit for him. Not that he really needed one, being practically indestructible, but Tony was always looking into the future with startling accuracy and had pointed out that just because nothing they had _now_ could hurt Luke didn’t mean someone wouldn’t come up with something, especially now that Luke had ‘gone legit’ in the superheroing business. So he and Luke had put their heads together and were working out something that would be suitable. Pun intended.

“Yeah?” Jessica said, twisting around on her stool a little. “Explain.”

“Mentally incompetent doesn’t mean stupid,” Matt said, still ‘reading’ as he spoke. Bucky admired his ability to multitask. “I mean, it _can_ , if someone’s intelligence is really that low. Basically, mentally incompetent means that whatever mental state a person was in at the time meant that they were incapable of making a sound, well thought out decision. That can be something permanent like low intelligence or dementia or it can be something sporadic, like schizophrenia. So at the time of whatever it was that happened, they were of unsound mind.”

Jessica nodded to indicate her understanding. “So how does that go with them?” She jerked a thumb in Bucky’s direction.

“Bucky and Winter’s case was complex,” Matt replied. “The psychologists don’t _really_ know what happened to create Winter. The closest explanation they’ve got is some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder induced by the sheer trauma of what Bucky went through at the hands of HYDRA combined with a bit of classic Pavlovian conditioning with the control words. It’s a bit more complicated than that because there’s no actual dissociation involved for Bucky when Winter is in control… or for Winter when Bucky is in control, for that matter… and the conditioning was a bit more complex – they think – but if you narrow it down to something understandable to the average layperson, that’s where you end up.”

Now Matt put his book aside. “So, _Bucky_ can’t be held responsible for the actions of the Winter Soldier because he wasn’t actually in control of his own body at the time. And though he was awake and aware, he couldn’t override the Winter Soldier or stop him or really do anything because of the conditioning that controlled the Winter Soldier.”

Bucky caught the look of genuine horror on Jessica’s face that quickly morphed into anger and a few muttered comments about HYDRA that were very uncomplimentary and that Bucky agreed with completely. He didn’t say anything though and let Matt continue to walk Jessica through what had happened.

“Now,” Matt continued. “The Winter Soldier _is_ responsible for the crimes he committed _but_ … at the time, not only was Winter under that Pavlovian control I spoke about but the Winter Soldier had about as much awareness and understanding of the world as your average gun.” He snorted at himself. “Okay, that’s venturing a bit into hyperbole there but the analogy still kind of stands. The Winter Soldier was treated like a tool or a weapon. He was kept under strict control and put away when he was no longer useful. He was given enough information to carry out his mission and nothing more. He was never given an opportunity to develop a real sense of self or a personality beyond ‘killing machine’. If you listen to Winter describe his missions, it’s like listening to a machine reciting fact after fact with no emotional context.”

“So, Winter was mentally incompetent,” Jessica said.

Matt nodded. “That was the decision that was ultimately made. It helped that Winter had an… outsider’s view of the law. He was given enough information to allow him to go unnoticed before he got to his target without being given any context. Along the lines of ‘don’t steal from a shop because that will draw attention’, not ‘don’t steal because it’s wrong and against the law’.”

“Not to mention the fact that if they found Winter mentally competent and therefore guilty, how do they punish Winter without also punishing Bucky, who they’d already deemed innocent,” Luke said dryly.

“There was also that,” Matt said with a grin. “It also helped that Winter was able to testify that he _did_ understand the law now and was willing to abide by it, even if he did think a lot of laws were kind of stupid.”

Matt chuckled. “And it’s everyone’s God-given right to think laws are kind of stupid as long as they don’t break them. Or if they do, to have some kind of good reason. Though even then, you might not escape jail time.”

“Don’t I know it,” Luke said wryly.

“Okay,” Jessica said. “So that explains the Winter Soldier stuff. What about Bucharest and Berlin?”

“Ah, that was a little more complicated,” Matt began.

“Neither of us were completely in control during those times,” Bucky said quietly. “HYDRA controlled us with a combination of the trigger words, which gave the Winter Soldier control, and the control word, which gave our handlers a leash. When they woke me for the shit in DC, they didn’t know about the control word. I don’t know why, I just know they didn’t use it. So the Winter Soldier was triggered and active and in control but not truly _under_ control. When Stevie recognised me and called me Bucky…”

He broke off and swallowed hard. The others waited patiently for him to gain some control again.

“I pushed forward,” he said. “I’d tried in the past but it had never worked. But something about not having the control word allowed me to succeed. It was only when I started therapy that I remembered that it used to happen before they put the control word into effect. I’d be able to fight Winter for control and we’d often go… AWOL, I suppose, as we got confused.”

“So the _power of friendship_ really did break your conditioning?” Jessica said with sarcastic scepticism and finger quotes around ‘power of friendship’.

Bucky snorted with amusement. “Kinda but not really. Winter and I ended up sorta… smushed in the same place at the same time and it… _really_ didn’t work for us.”

“The analogy Bucky’s lawyer used was of a cassette tape when it got really old or there was just some kind of glitch where two tracks were accidentally recorded over the same piece of tape,” Matt said with a smile. “When you played the tape, you got discordant snatches of each song, neither of which was in ascendance and generally didn’t make sense.”

Bucky nodded. “Winter and I were both trying to get control because we knew whatever was going on wasn’t going to work but neither of us could… and neither of us could move or shove each other out of the way. It was… confusing. Winter was trying to do one thing, I was trying to do another and neither of us could remember things or even think properly because the other was in the way. Bucharest was the first place where we could just stop and be safe and just… _be_. Try and untangle ourselves and figure out what the hell was going on.”

“Then Rogers came waltzing in,” Jessica said with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied with a rueful smile. “Stevie came in and I… _remembered_ him but only in bits and pieces. Winter still had the kill orders uppermost in his mind so he didn’t like Stevie. So when Stevie kept talking about the UN bombing and how they were going to kill me, I knew something wasn’t quite right but our thoughts were so muddled together that I couldn’t sort it out before everything went to hell and then… the only thought that was really running strong was that I knew Stevie and maybe I should follow his lead.”

“Which everyone agreed meant that both Bucky _and_ Winter were not mentally competent enough to make any kind of coherent decisions in Bucharest,” Matt said. “And even though Zemo’s recitation of the trigger words in Berlin did allow the two personalities to separate, they also gave Winter control, which brought in the Winter Soldier’s defence. Leipzig/Halle Airport was where Bucky and Winter first started to sort themselves out.”

Bucky sighed heavily and started putting the sandwiches on a platter. “Yeah, I still feel I shoulda stopped or said something or turned myself in in Bucharest but... I was just… still trying to sort out what the hell had happened in my own head and time kept getting’ away from me.”

“Both Bucky and Winter _were_ deemed to be mentally competent after Leipzig, since they managed to pass whatever tests, interviews and whatever else the psychiatrists came up with,” Matt explained. “They still don’t really understand what’s going on in Bucky’s head but the fact that both Bucky and Winter turned themselves in and cooperated fully was taken into consideration and counted heavily in his favour.”

“It’s kinda why I’m here,” Bucky said. “I was found not guilty but I told them I wanted to make _some_ form of reparation, depending on my mental state and a whole bunch of other conditions. They approved and part of being declared not guilty was a court order to make those reparations. When I decided I was willing to join the Avengers if you guys would have me, the court deemed that to be sufficient for the reparations. I guess you could say that for the next five years, I’m kinda doing community service.”

Jessica nodded, looking far more mollified and understanding. Then her gaze sharpened and she fixed Bucky with a glare that actually managed to set Winter back where he was lurking in the back of his head.

“And Tony? His parents?” she said coldly and Bucky winced. He might have known that Tony and Jessica were close enough for her to have dragged that mess out of him.

“Tony didn’t press charges for that,” Matt said quietly. “Not against Bucky. Or Winter, for that matter.”

“He shoulda,” Bucky said, his voice heavy with guilt then Winter shouldered him aside. “Bucky didn’t kill ‘em. _I_ did.”

The three of them gave a start and then he got a collection of narrow looks before they settled down again.

“Tony said his Dad said your name or Bucky’s name anyway,” Jessica snapped. “Guess the power of friendship wasn’t so great there, eh?”

“No,” Winter said flatly. “I was controlled then. The full collar and leash. I was a weapon, a machine, and weapons don’t feel anything, not fear, not pain, not happiness. And they sure as hell don’t recognise people. They’re just weapons. I wasn’t a person.”

“But when we were together, after DC, that changed,” Winter continued. He sounded implacable and emotionless but they could see that he wasn’t. That the emotions were lurking underneath, he was just very good at controlling them. “I could see what Bucky was… a person. And I wanted that. To _be_ that. Once we separated, it was easier. I realised I could be what I wanted. I could think what I wanted. Feel what I wanted. I could be a person but if I was going to be a person, I had to act like one. That’s why we turned ourselves in. I convinced Bucky to do that and he realised I was right. Part of that was taking responsibility for what I had done. Including admitting to murdering Tony’s parents. He has forgiven me. I don’t know how or why but he has.”

Winter shrugged and continued before Jessica or any of the others could say anything. “But I still have a debt. Not Bucky’s debt. _Mine_. _I_ hurt him. I orphaned him. I will do what I can to repay that debt.”

“Is that why you get all protective of Tony when we train?” Luke said, looking amused.

“He is too reckless.” Winter scowled. “He fights like his life does not matter. It does.”

_Now_ Jessica softened. “Well, you got that right,” she grumbled, still unwilling to be too accepting right now despite her approval of his attitude.

“Just… when we actually let you loose in a real battle and not just training… remember to follow your orders and not just spend all your time protecting Tony,” Luke said with open amusement. “He won’t thank you for it.”

Winter snorted. “I can do both,” he said arrogantly.

Luke laughed and shook his head as he went back to looking at his designs. “Good luck.”

Winter harrumphed and picked up the platter of sandwiches Bucky had made since the man was nagging at him. He wasn’t _quite_ in the mood to give up control just yet and Bucky was going to continue to nag at him until he fed people so he took the platter out and thumped it down on the table in front of the couch. 

“Eat. He’s being annoying.”

That got Jessica laughing and as she got up to grab her share of lunch, she patted him on the shoulder very firmly. “You’ve _got_ to work on your people skills, Winter. They’re worse than mine and that’s saying something.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes to see Steve. It... well, it goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few people have asked about Natasha - don't worry, she'll be coming up in a couple of chapters.
> 
> Also this chapter is not Steve friendly. So, be warned, be prepared and know that any comments of a negative nature will not make it past the moderation. If you're looking for a more Steve positive story, well, I do have one in the works that I'm thinking of starting to post but this is not that story.

Bucky did not want to be in this place and Winter was making it just as plain that he liked it even less. Unfortunately, this wasn’t really about either of them. The request for his presence had been made by the Accords Council and while Tony, Carol and Rhodes had made it plain that they’d be willing to fight on his behalf, neither Bucky nor Winter could deny that the request was perfectly reasonable. And it _was_ a request, not an order or a demand. A simple request to go and speak to Stevie and see if he could make the man see sense.

He’d received plenty of letters from Stevie since he’d turned them all in to the authorities in Germany. He’d read the first few but they always made him feel so unsettled and upset that he’d taken them to his therapist and asked for her advice. She’d given him options instead of advice, as she always tended to do, and so it had been Bucky, with Winter’s agreement, who had decided to stop reading them. He didn’t send them back but… they weren’t good for his recovery and that was more important to him.

Rhodes had told him about Stevie’s repeated escape attempts but it hadn’t been until the communication from the Council that he’d found out that the escape attempts were apparently because of him. Not that anyone at the prison or on the Council faulted _him_ for that. Stevie’s choices were Stevie’s choices in their eyes and if he chose to refuse to accept the word of his lawyer that Bucky was fine then that was Stevie’s choice and any actions he took thereafter were his actions and the consequences were also his to accept.

But he’d apparently hurt a nurse in his last escape attempt and people were starting to worry about Stevie’s mental state. There was a hope that being able to see and speak to Bucky would calm him down. Bucky hoped so too, though the news about the nurse did worry him. At least, it did until Rhodes made a pointed comment about Bucharest. Bucky had to concede the point then. Stevie _had_ hurt innocent people there for no good reason so maybe it wasn’t such a surprise.

So, now he was standing outside the room they were using for this meeting. The entire prison had been built for enhanced criminals. After the debacle of the Raft, the UN had authorised a conglomeration of European countries to build a replacement. Tony had been consulted and had contributed many things to help humanely confine enhanced people. Nobody _liked_ having to have a prison like this but not every enhanced person was a good person… and not every artificially enhanced person came out of it entirely sane.

“Sir?”

Bucky looked over at the guard who had guided him here. The young man was enhanced himself, able to have his skin turn into something that was somewhere between very hard scales and actual rock. On their way into the prison, he’d told Bucky an admittedly very amusing story about how he’d once actually been _chewed_ on by a prisoner who could turn into a large lizard-like creature. The guard had been fine when the prisoner had been subdued, though he had lamented the lost cause that his uniform had been turned into. Ripped to shreds and covered in slobber had been his complaint.

“I’m fine,” Bucky replied. He took a deep breath then gestured towards the door. “Let’s do this.”

The guard nodded. “I’ll be outside at all times, Sergeant Barnes. If at any time you need assistance or if you want to leave, just push your personal button.”

Bucky nodded and fingered the small device that was fastened to his wrist on a short lanyard. All guards and visitors carried them and they were keyed to the wearer’s bio-print. Anyone other than the wearer tried to use them and the entire place would go into lockdown. And it was easy for someone to trigger an alert if they were being threatened. A single long press would do that. The prison management had decided that they’d rather have the occasional false alarm than risk their guards and visitors being forced to aid a prisoner under duress.

The guard opened the door and Bucky walked in. The room was a good size but it held only a single table with two chairs, all bolted to the floor, though from the looks of it, the furniture in it could be changed around if needed. They just weren’t going to risk anything for this meeting. There were cameras in all four corners of the room and a long one-way window in the wall opposite the door. There was also a dead feeling in the air and a sudden heaviness in his metal arm that told Bucky that there was definitely some sort of dampening fields in effect, probably both electrical and magical.

Stevie was sitting at the table, his wrists handcuffed and chained to a loop in the table and his ankles shackled to the chair. He half stood has Bucky walked in then sat down again when his chains and shackles jangled.

“Bucky!”

Bucky gave Stevie a long look then walked over and sat down. “Stevie.”

“It’s so good to see you,” Stevie said, before looking over his shoulder shiftily and leaning forward as much as he could. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

Bucky wanted to roll his eyes at the overblown theatrics. “I’m fine,” he said in a normal tone of voice.

Stevie didn’t seem to notice his exasperation and leaned in as much as he could. “It’s okay, Buck. If Stark is causing you trouble, we can…”

Bucky scowled and interrupted. “Stark isn’t doing _anything_ to me, except being kind.”

“You can’t trust him, Bucky,” Stevie said with an unthinking fervour in his eyes that sent a shiver up Bucky’s spine.

_Are you sure he isn’t insane? Because I’ve seen that look before._

Bucky wanted to argue with Winter but it was hard to. Because he had access to Winter’s memories in the same way Winter had access to his. He’d seen that look before too, just not personally.

“It’s fine,” he said warily. “There are plenty of other people there as well.”

Stevie settled just a little. “I’ve been trying to get out. I can’t trust them to keep you safe.” He looked around with a scowl. “They don’t have any right to keep me here anyway. I’m Captain America! I was just doing what was right. These people don’t understand that.”

Bucky made a noncommittal noise and just let Stevie ramble on. He had a suspicion they were being watched and he thought he might as well give them enough to work with. All he knew was that whoever this was, it wasn’t the Stevie he knew.

Finally, the guard knocked on the door and opened it. “Time’s up,” he said in a neutral tone.

Bucky immediately stood up and Stevie suddenly looked panicked. He tried to stand as well but got caught but the chains on his handcuffs.

“Bucky!” Stevie cried and started yanking at the chain in desperation.

As the guard ushered Bucky out and they made way for a half dozen more heavily armed guards, Bucky couldn’t help but notice that for all Stevie’s efforts, he hadn’t made a single dent in the table, the chains or the cuffs. He was silent as the guard led him through the corridors and out into the staff areas, where he was ushered into a comfortably appointed office.

“Have a seat,” the guard said. “Dr Jakobs would like to speak to you.”

Bucky nodded and sank into one of the comfortable chairs in front of the desk. There was a small window in one wall that looked out into a small courtyard. Bucky stared out that window and let himself mourn the friendship that he still only vaguely remembered.

“Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky had heard the door open but had let Winter stand guard. Now, though, he turned and stood, shaking the other man’s hand.

“Have a seat,” Dr Jakobs said with a mild French accent. “I’m Dr Henri Jakobs, the prison’s psychologist.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Bucky said a little warily. “You were watching, weren’t you?”

Dr Jakobs nodded. “I was and thank you for dragging that out as long as you did. He’s been… very good at hiding what he’s thinking with us.”

“Not so much with me,” Bucky said heavily.

“No, not so much,” Dr Jakobs said with a sad look and a nod of understanding.

“He’s gone crazy, hasn’t he?” Bucky asked.

“We… don’t really use that word anymore,” Dr Jakobs replied. “He certainly appears to have had some sort of mental breakdown. We suspected that but he’s been stubborn in regards to his treatment until now. Today gave us more of an insight and will allow us to tailor his treatment a bit better.”

Bucky stared down at his hands. “Has he… was it the serum? Or something else?”

“That I can’t answer,” Dr Jakobs replied. “We know very little about how the serum actually works but we will reach out to Dr Banner now that we have a better idea of what’s going on with Mr Rogers.”

“Dr Banner?” Bucky said with a frown. Banner had arrived on Earth about a month ago with Thor, Loki and a heap of Asgardians. Also with a hell of a story. Banner had dropped into the Compound briefly but had spent all that time holed up with Tony. After Banner had left, Tony had been out of sorts and prickly, though he wouldn’t say why. Not to Bucky anyway. Bucky had a feeling he’d talked to Rhodes though.

“Dr Banner’s… condition is a result of his own experiments with the super soldier serum,” Dr Jakobs explained. “He’s our best option for looking at the physical effects.”

“You don’t want… my help?” Bucky asked warily as Winter bristled in the back of his head.

“No, Sergeant Barnes,” Dr Jakobs said kindly. “We’ve already had any relevant information forwarded to us and other than perhaps meeting with Mr Rogers every couple of months to keep him calm, there is little you can really do.”

Bucky gave a sigh of relief. “Okay. Good. Um, I can come back if you need me.”

Dr Jakobs smiled. “Thank you. We’ll assess how this visit has gone over the next couple of weeks and contact you about a plan of action.”

Bucky was relieved that they didn’t seem to want him on hand all the time. Then he immediately felt guilty. Stevie was his friend, his brother, and it felt callous and cruel to not want anything to do with him.

“Do you think…?” he trailed off, not sure how to phrase his question.

“That he will recover?” Dr Jakobs said. He sighed. “It’s possible. Mr Rogers has been under a great deal of stress for several years and it appears that SHIELD made no attempts to assist him in adapting to this new time he found himself in. Add in an alien invasion, a betrayal of a truly monumental nature and his discovery about what happened to you and…” He grimaced. “A mental breakdown was perhaps not an unexpected outcome. But have no fear, Sergeant Barnes, we will do everything we can to assist Mr Rogers. I cannot guarantee that he will ever be the man you once knew but…” He smiled. “Neither are you the man Mr Rogers once knew.”

“I think that’s part of his problem,” Bucky said with a sigh.

“It is,” Dr Jakobs conceded. “But it is not _your_ problem.”

That wasn’t entirely true but Bucky understood what Dr Jakobs was saying. They exchanged a few more pleasantries and then the psychologist escorted Bucky out of the prison. Bucky paused on the footpath outside and raised his head to the sun as he took a deep breath.

_Sorry you had to put up with all of that_ , he said to Winter. _I know you don’t like Stevie that much._

_He’s your friend, not mine_ , Winter said bluntly. _But if this helps to make Tony relax a little instead of getting tense every time Rogers’ latest escape attempt is mentioned, I’ll put up with it._

Bucky sighed. _Winter…_

_He and Potts split up_ , Winter said cheerfully. _And you can’t deny that you like him as well._

Bucky started walking towards the car park where the UN car was waiting for him. _You don’t even know if he likes you… us… that way._

_Please_ , Winter said. _If he hasn’t noticed me blatantly staring at his ass during training then he must be a special kind of oblivious. Everyone else has noticed._

Bucky sighed again. He didn’t always pay attention when Winter took over for training. He found it frustrating to be along for the ride and not be able to do anything but when it came to hand to hand combat, Winter was the one with that training. Now when they needed a sniper, that was his game. But it did explain some weird looks he’d been getting as well as some of the snickering. _Really?_

_Hey, it’s a great ass._

Bucky couldn’t deny that. _Rhodes is going to kill us both._

Winter snorted. _Rhodes has been encouraging me._

_He what?_

_He keeps putting Tony into situations that need my assistance_ , Winter said with a mental shrug. _How else am I supposed to read that?_

Bucky managed a smile for the driver of the car as he opened the door for him. Once he was inside and they were heading for the airport, Bucky picked up the conversation again.

_Have you asked Rhodes whether he’s encouraging you or are you just assuming and he’s going to come and kill us anyway?_

He could feel Winter’s exasperation. _Maybe if you put a move on Tony, we’d know the answer to that._

_I can’t do that!_

_Then I will._

_Winter!_ Bucky didn’t get an answer and he could feel the way Winter was aggressively ignoring him. _Fine. Just make sure Rhodes kills your ass instead of mine._

_If you continue being like that, I’ll make sure I’m the only one who gets Tony’s ass_, Winter threatened.

Bucky frowned. He wasn’t sure how Winter could actually follow through on that given they shared a body but he probably didn’t want to find out. He sighed. _Fine. We’ll both do it._

_Good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter - Tony and Bucky... *gasp*... have a conversation. :D 
> 
> Also, based on the chapter I'm currently writing, apparently this fic won't be quite as Clint unfriendly as I thought it was going to be. I do seem to like to redeem at least one of the Rogues in my fics and it seems it's Clint's turn this time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a Winteriron fic, there's been a real lack of Tony and Bucky interacting, so this chapter rectifies that a bit.

Later, Bucky would blame the fact that he’d been having a particularly intense argument with Winter about which was better – Star Wars or Star Trek (he could swear that sometimes Winter took opposing opinions from him just for shits and giggles because they were both damn fine things to watch and how _anyone_ could take a stand against lightsabers… _lightsabers_ … was beyond him) – for the fact that it took him nearly fifteen minutes to notice that he was alone with Tony in the kitchen.

He had never, in all the time since he’d first arrived at the Compound, been left alone with Tony. Barring the first day he arrived, that is, but even that had been cut short partway into the tour of the Compound by an apparent emergency that had required Tony’s immediate presence. Tony’s expression when he’d left had been more exasperated than worried and that had made Bucky and Winter suspect that Tony had been _extracted_ from his presence in a reasonably polite way. Since then, there had always been at least one other person (or all three bots and an AI when he was in the workshop getting maintenance on his arm) in the room whenever he and Tony were both there. Or in a couple of cases, someone had conveniently arrived not long after.

But they’d been here, on their own, for fifteen minutes now and there was no one else in the room and no one was hurrying in with an excuse for being there. Of course, FRIDAY was undoubtedly watching over them but this was definitely a first in terms of no other people being around. Not that FRIDAY wasn’t a person but that was beside the point.

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully as he spooned more of his cereal into his mouth. One advantage in having arguments with Winter was that he could keep eating without pause.

Tony finished preparing his coffee and turned around to lean on the bench with an amused look on his face. “Took you long enough.”

Bucky grimaced. “Winter was being a little shit. As if Star Trek is better than Star Wars…” He paused for just a moment to allow the appropriate look of outrage to grow on Tony’s face then he continued, “When everyone know they’re both awesome.”

Tony looked mollified. “Well then… clearly you have an acceptable grasp of the situation.” He cocked his head curiously. “Does Winter often do that?”

“I think he gets bored sometimes,” Bucky said with a shrug. “He’s not really interested in being in control unless there’s something he finds fun on offer but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get bored.”

“So he argues with you?” Tony said, looking even more amused.

Bucky shrugged again. “I’m always here and he knows how to push my buttons.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

Bucky paused just to take a breath at the astounding generosity of this man. Tony had been the one to make sure he got the help he needed after the mess in Bucharest and ensure he didn’t get thrown to the wolves. Sure, the faces he’d seen most often had been either Rhodes or Potts, with occasional visits from Vision when they were concerned about the Winter Soldier making an appearance rather than just Winter, but it hadn’t been difficult to figure out that it had been Tony behind it. Then there was the arm, this Compound, his acceptance into the Avengers… all Bucky could think was that Stevie was a damned fool to have thrown this away.

“Nah,” he said with a shake of his head. “Mostly he just… sleeps isn’t quite accurate but it’ll do since I don’t know any other word for it.” He saw the small frown on Tony’s face and correctly interpreted it. “He wakes up when there are people around. He’s still not comfortable not being aware then but that’s okay because he likes to comment on things.”

Tony suddenly snickered. “So that explains the look on your face at times.”

Bucky smiled wryly. “Yeah, he gets… interesting every now and then.” He shrugged once more. “But it’s all okay. We’re good.” He paused for a moment. “So what’s changed that you don’t have your guard dogs anymore?”

Tony arched an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“Me seeing Stevie?” Bucky said with a frown. “Why’d that change things?”

“Because some of the others still weren’t entirely sure where your loyalties lay,” Tony replied. “Because you still call him Stevie and they were sure if you saw him that you’d break him out and go on the run again.”

Bucky snorted. “They don’t have a very high opinion of me then.”

“Nah, it’s not that,” Tony replied in a placating tone. “They just know that some ties run pretty deep and they weren’t sure which way you’d leap when the chips were down.”

Bucky considered that. _It’s a fair assessment_ , Winter said. _You did go haring off after him in Bucharest._

_We did that because we didn’t know which way was up_ , Bucky replied dryly. _But I see your point. They don’t know how really messed up we still were then, they only have our word for it._

“Something ain’t right about Stevie,” he said dryly. “And even if I didn’t recognise that, Winter does. As for calling him Stevie, it’s not something I think about, it just… happens.”

Tony nodded. “I told them you’d be fine but some of them still don’t quite get the dual personality thing.” He flashed a shockingly mischievous grin. “They still think most of your trash talk and sass is all Winter. I know that at least half of it is you.”

Bucky was utterly charmed by that grin and when he felt Winter’s smug satisfaction, he gave his alter ego the mental finger.

_You like him as much as I do_ , Winter said smugly.

_That doesn’t mean he likes us_ , Bucky immediately countered.

“Problems, Buckaboo?” Tony said, drawing Bucky’s attention away from Winter.

“Nothing important,” he said with a sigh. “Winter’s just in a mood this morning. He’s still narky about visiting Stevie.”

Tony looked curious. “Is it weird? Him disliking Rogers so much.”

Bucky noted the ‘Rogers’ instead of ‘Steve’ but didn’t say anything about it. If Tony needed that distance, who was he to say otherwise. It made sense in a lot of ways. Tony had trusted Stevie, had considered him a friend, and to find out he’d been keeping _that_ kind of secret for at least a couple of years for completely selfish reasons? Yeah, Bucky wasn’t going to call Tony out on that because he didn’t think there was anything to call out.

“Not so much,” he said with a shrug. “He doesn’t know Stevie except as a target. He wasn’t… born? Created? Whatever the hell you want to call it. Until after I fell from the train. _I_ know Stevie. He doesn’t.”

“Huh,” Tony said thoughtfully. “I never quite thought about it like that.”

“That’s why he had no idea about laws and morals and everything,” Bucky continued. “Because he didn’t grow up learning them sort of automatically like we did. He was just… created and he did what he was told to do.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I read the transcripts of your court case.”

Bucky blinked. “You did? Why?”

Tony sighed and took a sip of his coffee. His expression became pensive and thoughtful. “I guess I needed to know. I needed the…” He grimaced. “The closure? I hate that word but it fits.” He met Bucky’s eyes unflinchingly. “I needed to see that you weren’t to blame and that neither was Winter. It helped me separate you and Winter from HYDRA in the blame game.”

“You said something about Maximoff as well when we first met,” Bucky asked, a little tentative since he didn’t want to dig up old hurts but Tony seemed fine with the question.

“Yeah, I… just sort of accepted that I was to blame for her parents’ deaths,” he said. “I don’t know whether that was just my guilt complex speaking or whether she influenced me to think that way. Or both. Stephen… Dr Stephen Strange?” He paused until Bucky nodded to indicate that he knew who Tony was talking about. “Stephen thinks it was both since he found signs that she’d been meddling with my head. He got rid of it all, which changed a lot really. Anyway, once he’d done that, I got talking with Rhodey and Pepper and we tracked down everything we could find of Obie… Stane’s activities.”

Bucky nodded to indicate he understood. Obadiah Stane had been part of his briefing after he’d decided to join the Avengers. From the tone of it, he was pretty sure it had been put together by Rhodes because it was military precise but in the section on Stane, there was an underlying anger about the phrasing that spoke louder than words. Also, apart from the anger directed at Stane, the whole thing had an air of… a warning was perhaps the best way of putting it. Like he was being briefed about this, not because it was vitally important information but because it was key to knowing what to say and not say around Tony.

“Obie… Stane never sold into Eastern Europe,” Tony said with a simple shrug. “He sold to a couple of black market dealers who might have then sold stuff into Eastern Europe but Stane mostly kept to the Middle East and Africa. More wars, more skirmishes, more lucrative selling conditions and less scrutiny from the rest of the world because, hey, who gives a shit if some people whose skin isn’t white are killing each other.”

Bucky winced at the bitterness in Tony’s voice in that last sentence. It was the kind of attitude that HYDRA had possessed and yet had also taken advantage of. 

“So, it may or may not have been a Stark Industries weapon,” he said, prompting the conversation along in the hopes Tony wouldn’t get caught up in guilt over what his weapons had been used for.

“Yeah,” Tony replied. “There’s no way of actually knowing but even if it was… their deaths still weren’t my fault. I may have designed it but I probably didn’t sell it and I definitely didn’t fire the damn thing.”

“It was a kid’s rationalisation,” Bucky said. “But she wasn’t a kid anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s what my therapist said,” Tony replied. “I’m sorry her parents got killed and I’m sorry my weapons might have been used to do it. But I didn’t kill them.” He cocked his head and gave Bucky a wry smile. “Kind of like you. You’re not to blame and really, Winter isn’t either. Sure, he killed them but from what the transcripts said, he had about as much awareness as the missile that killed Wanda’s parents.”

A complex wave of emotions flooded through Bucky from Winter and he sent back a wordless reassurance. Winter might say that he felt no guilt for killing Tony’s parents but Bucky had always known that wasn’t _quite_ true. Winter had certainly felt no guilt at the time but as he became more and more human and aware and his own person, he felt something.

“I think he needed to hear that,” he said quietly. “So did I for that matter.”

“I think I needed to say it,” Tony said wryly. “Aren’t we both good little therapy patients?”

Bucky chuckled. “I guess we are but if it works, it works.”

Just then, Rhodes rounded the corner and entered the kitchen. Bucky would have been suspicious and assumed that they were being chaperoned again but Rhodes was on the phone and from the expression on his face and the tone of his voice, he’d been so for some time and wasn’t enjoying the experience. Also the look on his face when he saw who was in the kitchen was initially surprised but then apparently unconcerned as he finished off his conversation.

“Who was that, sugarplum?” Tony asked, frowning a little. “If that was Everett…”

Rhodes waved a hand. “Nah, it wasn’t Ross. It was the Secretary of Defence. They’re trying a side play this time.”

Bucky watched with confusion as Tony rolled his eyes. “Side-stepping the normal chain of command again. Want me to inform Everett?”

Rhodes considered that for a moment. “I’m normally not one to tattle but this is getting ridiculous. Yeah, go ahead. He can get the Council to slap them down and maybe we’ll get a few months of peace.”

“Consider it done.” Tony checked his watch. “If I do it now, I’ll catch him in the office.” He flashed a quick smile and a wave at Bucky. “See ya, Tastee Freez.”

Bucky waved in return then turned a curious look on Rhodes. He got an assessing look in response then Rhodes nodded to himself.

“Yeah, maybe you ought to know,” Rhodes said. “If only because they’re getting a bit underhanded and they might try getting into contact with you next.”

“Who?” Bucky said with a frown.

“The US government,” Rhodes replied. “There’s a small faction in there that wants to push for the Rogues’ sentences to be commuted to something similar to what you’re doing voluntarily, paying off their sentences by being Avengers.”

Bucky blinked. “What? Wouldn’t that be international diplomatic suicide? Especially with the Europeans?”

“They think they can sell it as America taking responsibility for the problems it has caused,” Rhodes said dryly. “They’re trying to include monetary reparations of some description in that as well. It’s hogwash but the word we’re getting is that there is some interest in Europe. Not in Germany or Romania but elsewhere. The concept that America is, in their eyes, finally going to accept responsibility for their fuck ups instead of sloughing it off onto the countries who got trashed and pretending they did nothing wrong is one they like. They like it even more when they think of the ways they could spin that to their own constituents. They don’t care if it’s true or not.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how he felt about that but he could feel that Winter was unimpressed and getting ready to move on from unimpressed to angry. “The Accords Council…” he began.

“Aren’t likely to let it happen, no matter what the US government tries to pull,” Rhodes said. “The Rogues were charged and tried under the Accords by the ICC, not any individual country’s laws or courts. Even though they didn’t sign the Accords, they were still ratified by Germany and Romania so there were angles they could take beyond the breach of contract that Romanov was nailed under. They’re being held in a joint ICC and Accords administered prison. The EU can put all the pressure it likes on them but they have no actual jurisdiction. The Rogues aren’t going anywhere.”

“How?” Bucky said. “I mean, why?”

Rhodes sighed and looked disgusted and suddenly Bucky knew how to answer is own question.

“Captain America,” he said wearily.

“Got it in one,” Rhodes replied. “They don’t like the idea of Captain America languishing in a European prison, even if he actually did do what he was found guilty of.”

“So… what do we do?” Bucky asked, scrubbing his face with his flesh hand.

“You do nothing except keep your eyes open when you’re away from the Compound,” Rhodes said. “If someone approaches you about this, be polite, be noncommittal and get away from them as quickly as you can then let Carol, Tony or myself know.” He looked faintly amused. “And make sure Winter understands that there’s to be no bloodshed.”

_Winter?_ Bucky said.

There was a long, sullen silence before Winter finally replied. _Fine._

“We’re good,” Bucky said, giving a small nod.

“Great. Thank you.” Rhodes sighed then shook his head. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and then disappeared back the way he’d come.

_Besides_ , Winter said smugly as soon as they heard the elevator doors close in the distance. _I know plenty of ways to kill without shedding a single drop of blood._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter - Natasha! I promise. :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know you've all been dying to know what happened with Natasha and... here you go. This also indicates the start of some actual plot. *gasp*

Bucky was sitting on the couch in the common room watching cat videos when he abruptly found himself shunted into the background as Winter took over.

_What the fuck?_ he demanded. It wasn’t that Winter hadn’t done this before but usually he knew why before it happened.

Winter didn’t answer him and they stood up and turned to face the person who had just entered the room.

_You should pay more attention_ , Winter snapped mentally before he growled out loud, “Black Widow.”

She _was_ a Black Widow too. Bucky had been awake during the time Winter had spent training the young potential Widows. It hadn’t been a fun time but it had meant that he could recognise a Widow when he saw one. The way they moved and held themselves was distinctive. But the training had been something else. Kind and gentle had not been in Winter’s vocabulary at the time and that wasn’t what they’d wanted from him anyway. The training had been brutal but this one… this young Widow had stuck out. 

“Soldat,” the Widow said warily. She clearly recognised them.

Winter growled again, wordless sound of annoyance, and a knife appeared in his hand. Bucky sighed and reached out to Winter.

_No bloodshed._

_Does she know that?_

Bucky saw then what Winter had already known. The Widow had a knife in her hand as well. The whole situation might have devolved into violence but right then, Tony meandered into the room, reading something on a tablet. Winter moved fast, putting them between Tony and the Widow.

Tony looked up in surprised as he found himself almost walking into a wall of muscle and came to a halt. He peered around Winter and saw who else was in the room and shook his head. He placed a hand on Winter’s arm without a single sign of fear or hesitation.

“Winter, buddy, stand down,” he said calmly. “She’s not an enemy.”

“She is not a friend,” Winter said, his tone flat and ugly. The Widow flinched a little at that but neither Bucky nor Winter believed that for an instant. Widows didn’t have friends or feelings. They had marks and games and lacking controllers and orders, they were out for themselves.

The pause from Tony was just long enough to make something like hurt appear in the Widow’s eyes. Bucky wondered if maybe she was a bit like Winter and had broken free of her training and was trying to be better. Winter immediately scoffed.

_Don’t be soft_ , Winter snarled. _She’s a Widow. They don’t change and they’re very good actors._

“She’s an Avenger,” Tony finally said.

Winter – and therefore Bucky – had still been watching the Widow and the expression that flickered across her face at that was all Bucky needed to know that Winter was right. This Widow might be an Avenger but she was here because it was advantageous for her, not because she knew right from wrong and had decided to do the right thing, no matter what.

_Winter_ , Bucky said after a moment of thought. _Stand down. She’s an Avenger, which means if we attack her without provocation, our standing will be in jeopardy._

_She’s a Widow_, Winter snarled.

_I know. But she’s playing this side of the fence. We don’t have to like her or trust her but we do have to stand down._

Winter was silent and still for a long, uncomfortable moment then he slid the knife back into hiding and stepped aside. He didn’t, however, surrender control and from the glance Tony gave them, he knew that. And when he stepped past them and Winter took his position just behind and to one side, Tony made no comment and nor did he tell Winter to back off. Bucky couldn’t tell, since he couldn’t see Tony’s face, but he suspected Tony didn’t exactly trust the Widow either and when he sent this thought to Winter, he felt the satisfaction flow back.

“Natashalie,” Tony said lightly. “What brings you to this neck of the woods? Thought you were playing liaison to the new SHIELD.”

“I am,” Natasha said, all ease and amusement. Neither Winter nor Bucky trusted that for a moment. “Coulson sent me over with a request.”

Tony settled into a relaxed pose with his arms crossed over his chest and his tablet tucked under one arm. Bucky realised at the same moment Winter did that it was a façade. This wasn’t the Tony they usually faced. This was… something else. A mask that Tony was wearing specially for the Black Widow. A sense of fierce delight and approval flooded through them and Bucky couldn’t tell exactly who it was from.

“A request?” Tony said with dry amusement. “And what does Agent want now?”

Something a little pinched flickered across Natasha’s face. “Director Coulson has formally requested the Avengers’ assistance with Clint.” 

She held out a thick buff envelope to Tony and Winter and Bucky saw the way the man’s shoulders imperceptibly tensed. Bucky remembered the way Jessica and the other Defenders tended to place things they brought to Tony down on tables and benches and he knew he’d only ever seen Tony directly accept things from Rhodes and Potts. 

Bucky didn’t even need to prompt Winter into action. He’d been following Bucky’s thoughts closely and he sent an acknowledgement before he took a step forward and took the envelope from the Widow. He ran his hands over it, front and back and along the edges, then flicked it open and briefly inspected the contents. Only then did Winter hand it over to Tony. Much to both their surprise, though they were careful to not let it show, Tony accepted the envelope from them without a blink. Their surprise morphed into smug amusement when they saw the look on Natasha’s face. She didn’t like that Tony wouldn’t accept things from her but would from them and she sure as hell didn’t like the implication that they… and Tony… thought either she or SHIELD would tamper with then envelope in some way.

Tony slipped the papers from the envelope and read the front page through. He then looked over at Natasha.

“Isn’t he SHIELD’s problem?”

“He was an Avenger,” she said, her chin going up just the slightest fraction. Other people might not have noticed but Winter did and he crowed with triumph. The Widow had a chink in her armour. That was valuable information.

“Was being the operative word,” Tony replied and Winter rumbled with delight at the way Tony was playing hardball. “What happened was his choice and his choice alone. No one forced him to come out of retirement.”

“Come on, Tony,” Natasha said in a coaxing tone. “You know what Steve’s like.”

“I do,” Tony replied. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Clint made his choices and now he has to live with the consequences. If SHIELD is so concerned about him, why don’t they go and pick him up?”

“SHIELD doesn’t have the resources anymore. You know that,” Natasha replied. “Tony…”

Tony held up one hand. “Natasha, if the next words out of your mouth are going to have something to do with my ego then you can stop right now and get the hell out of my Compound.”

Bucky watched with interest as irritation flickered over Natasha’s face. _She’s used to being able to manipulate him._

_Yes_ , Winter replied. _But he’s changed – the therapy probably – and she hasn’t. Probably can’t, given she’s a Widow. They’re not known for their flexibility._ Winter paused then mentally snorted. _Outside of the bedroom anyway. They all react the same, think the same, fight the same. They do that well but they’re predictable for anyone who knows that._

“Tony,” Natasha was saying in a chiding tone that would be better used on a child, not a grown man who was a superhero and had lead his own company for over twenty years. Winter and Bucky bridled a little but Tony barely reacted.

“I will read it, Natasha,” Tony said firmly. “And I will present it to the rest of the leadership. Tell Agent that we’ll consider it but I’m not making any further promises until we know more.”

Natasha looked like she wanted to argue but Winter immediately started to loom menacingly behind Tony. She actually flinched at that, one hand drifting unconsciously to her stomach until she realised what she was doing and snatched it away. Winter smirked nastily at her.

“I’ll tell Coulson,” she said stiffly. She then nodded to Tony, glared briefly at Winter and stalked away.

Tony waited until she was out of earshot before he turned to look at Winter and Bucky with an amused expression. “I should have you two around whenever I have to speak to her. That’s the quickest I’ve ever gotten rid of her.”

“She cannot be trusted,” Winter growled.

Tony gave him a placating look. “I know, Snowflake. We don’t trust her. That’s why she was recommended as the Accords Council’s liaison to SHIELD. It got her out of our hair without it looking like we didn’t want her here.”

“She won’t be loyal to the Council.”

“We know that too,” Tony replied. “The _Council_ know that. She’s trusted within very narrow limits.” He smirked. “She’s toeing the line for now. She knows she’s on thin ice. T’Challa’s Dora Milaje caught her trying to liberate Rogers after he was captured at the airport. I spoke to King Kitty and asked him not to inform the Council. She knows we know though.” He also paused and grimaced. “She also knows that _I_ know that she knew about my parents’ deaths as well as Rogers.” He snorted. “That was a cumbersome sentence but you get my point. She steps out of line and there are obstruction of justice charges waiting for her as well as whatever the Council might want to do.”

“Blackmail,” Winter said with a nod. “Good. That’s the best way to control a Widow.”

“Well, not _blackmail_ as such,” Tony said uncomfortably then he sighed when Winter gave him a sceptical look. “Okay, yeah, I suppose it is blackmail.”

“There’s no need to feel guilty,” Winter said. “As I said, it’s the best way to control a Widow.”

Tony looked at him curiously. “You sound like you’ve dealt with them before.”

“I’ve trained them,” Winter replied. He snorted. “I trained _her_.”

Tony looked surprised and then a little calculating. “Huh. I didn’t know that. Anything you think we should know?”

“I’ll put together a report,” Winter said with a decisive nod, pleased that Tony was taking him seriously.

Tony still looked rather nonplussed but he smiled slightly anyway. “Thanks. You know… for the report and the… threatening looming.”

Winter smirked faintly. “It’s what I do best.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is where we take a left turn into something that is actual plot. *le gasp* :D (It's also why I've removed the Not Clint Friendly tag. Apparently I need to redeem at least one of the Rogues in my fics and Clint insisted it be him.)
> 
> Clint comes back into the picture and they find out something they thought was fact might not be.

Rhodes leaned back in his chair and frowned at the folder on the table. “So, SHIELD want us to bring Barton back in from the cold?”

“Yeah,” Tony said sourly. “What I’m not really clear on, despite all of that…” He waved a hand at the folder and the papers inside it. “…is why. Why us and why should we?”

“Is he really that bad?” Carol asked. Her tone and expression were that particular brand of neutral she used when talking about the Rogues. She didn’t know them and didn’t know what the team dynamics had been like. It had taken Tony a while – and a few frank discussions with her – to accept that when she asked questions like this, she wasn’t being accusatory or thinking they were lying or exaggerating, she just wanted to get information.

Tony and Rhodey exchanged glances. “Not at first,” Tony admitted. “In fact, I don’t know why he came out of retirement.” He snorted. “Well, other than the fact it probably wasn’t agreeing with him. But all that vitriol he spat out after they were captured at Leipzig? I have no idea when he started thinking I was the enemy…”

He trailed off and stared at Rhodey, who stared right back at him for a moment before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Maximoff,” Rhodes said wearily.

“What about her?” Carol asked with a frown.

“He got… really protective of her,” Tony explained slowly. “I mean, I thought it was a bit weird given that she fucked around with all our minds. After his experience with Loki, I was surprised when he seemed to take her under his wing.”

“Didn’t he say something about how he didn’t get any visions like everyone else?” Rhodey asked, a frown growing on his face.

Tony blinked. “Yeah, he did. That’s… weird.”

“What kind of counselling did SHIELD get him?” Carol asked and when there was no answer forthcoming, she raised an eyebrow. “ _Did_ SHIELD get him into any sort of therapy?”

“I have no idea,” Tony replied. “I never really asked…”

“That does change matters considerably, I think,” Carol said, her tone crisp and professional. “I think we may owe it to him to bring him in and see what’s going on. At the very least, we should get Stephen to take a look and see what, if anything, Maximoff might have done to him.”

Tony nodded, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Yeah, okay, you may have a point there.” He tilted his head a little. “FRI?”

“Yes, boss?”

“Can you do a little ferreting around in the SHIELD data dump for me please? I know Barton kept his family off the SHIELD grid but his professional stuff should be there. Check if he saw a therapist after his stint as one of Loki’s flying monkeys.”

“You got it, boss.”

Tony grimaced. “Look, FRI, don’t go looking into any actual notes or anything. I just want to know if he saw a therapist and for how long.”

Carol gave him an approving nod and he smiled wryly. “I do learn sometimes, Carol.”

“With a brain as big as yours, I should hope so,” she teased.

“So, we’re going to bring him in?” Rhodey said sourly.

Tony gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I know he said some pretty off-colour things about you and me after he was arrested but it’s not a crime to say off-colour things. Besides, if he had his mind fucked with by Maximoff…”

Rhodes sighed and waved a hand. “Yeah, good point. So, who goes to get him?”

“I’ll go,” Tony said.

“Are you sure?” Carol asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if I do it? I’m a neutral party in many ways since I wasn’t involved.”

Tony thought about that for a while then he shook his head. “No, look, I’ll do it. We were teammates… or I thought we were. So let’s start with me and if that goes badly, we can send you on a more formal basis.”

“Okay,” Carol replied, satisfied with the decision. “What’s next?”

Tony took back the file and set it aside and they moved into other business.

After the meeting, Tony decided not to waste any time. He checked the time zone differences and how long it would take to get to Thailand, got FRIDAY to prepare one of the quinjets then let Rhodey and Carol know where he was going. He was about halfway there when FRIDAY piped up.

“Boss? I’ve found Barton’s file.”

“And?”

There was a slight pause and Tony cocked an eyebrow. “He was cleared, boss,” FRIDAY said, sounding confused and dubious.

Tony frowned. “What do you mean? He was cleared of what?”

“He was seen by a psychologist after the battle of New York and cleared of any psychological trauma,” FRIDAY replied. “He was given the all clear to resume active duty. I didn’t look into the actual files, I just found the official report that was sent to Director Fury.”

Tony went very still. “FRI… check the psychologist. Is he on the HYDRA list?”

FRIDAY was silent for a moment then she replied. “Yes, boss. He is.”

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, _fuck_. Send that information to Rhodey and Carol.”

“Will do, boss.”

Tony wished he could say he was surprised but… he couldn’t. What he didn’t understand was why Fury hadn’t questioned that. Fury wasn’t stupid and he had years of experience. He had to have known that Barton would have had some form of PTSD after what happened to him. How had that slipped between the cracks? More HYDRA manipulation or was Barton just that good an actor? Or had Romanov had something to do with it? There was probably no way of knowing, even if he did ask Natasha. 

It did however paint a whole new picture of Barton’s reactions and decisions and it made him wonder even more about that lack of a Wanda-induced vision. Had he really not had a vision? Or was he have so much trouble with flashbacks and nightmares that he didn’t recognise the vision as being something imposed on him from the outside, like Tony had initially done with the vision he’d seen? Or worse, had Wanda not given him a vision at all but instead used the leftovers of whatever Loki had done to do her own little manipulation? Her powers _did_ come from the Mind Stone after all and it was the Mind Stone that had turned Barton into Loki’s flying monkey.

He was afraid that last thought might be correct as it would be the most logical explanation as to why a man who had been mind-controlled seemed so unconcerned about being around someone whose main skill set was… you know… mind controlling people. If the Mind Stone had left traces or pathways behind after Barton’s ‘cognitive recalibration’ then Wanda could have found them and used them easily enough.

He was glad when he entered Thai airspace and could distract himself with dealing with all of the usual formalities that came with entering another country. As it turned out, the Thai authorities had been keeping an eye on Barton, a little concerned with having a former Avenger – and a rogue one at that – in their country, and they were able to direct Tony to him. He was living just outside one of the tourist areas and after a little initial trouble, Tony was able to find precisely where Barton’s house was. The house was small but well-kept, which surprised Tony. The last he’d heard, Barton was drinking heavily and from his own experience in the drinking game, tidiness wasn’t the usual result of that sort of thing.

He walked up and knocked on the door. It was opened a moment later by an elderly lady who squinted at him with confusion.

“Ah, hello,” Tony said, caught a little off guard. “I’m looking for Clint Barton.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed even more then she gestured inside the house. She squeezed past him and Tony watched her go before walking inside. He guessed that he had his answer as to why the house was so neat. Barton was either paying her to clean up after him or must have tweaked the woman’s motherly instincts or something along those lines

“Barton?” he said as he walked into the house. “Clint?”

Silence greeted his enquiry then Clint stuck his head out the bedroom door. Tony gave a start. Clint looked terrible. His hair was askew, he clearly hadn’t shaved in a few days and his face was drawn and there was a yellowish tinge to it that Tony knew wasn’t healthy.

Clint stared at him like he didn’t recognise him then he said in a rusty voice. “Tony?”

“Yeah,” Tony stepped forward, his frown growing as he got a good look at Clint’s face. 

“You…” Clint frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Tony cocked his head slightly then decided to just be honest. “Coulson asked the Avengers to bring you in.”

Clint blinked. “Phil’s dead.”

Tony snorted. “You were SHIELD. Are you really surprised to find he isn’t?”

Clint seemed confused and Tony actually started to feel a little worried. He’d expected anger and vitriol and bitterness, the same as he’d gotten the last time he’d seen Clint, but he was just getting confusion. Clint was so spaced out that Tony was starting to worry that he was taking drugs of some description.

“Phil’s alive?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He glanced around and then gestured towards the little living room. “Let’s go sit down, shall we?”

Clint nodded and ambled into the living room before collapsing on the ratty couch. Tony followed him and sat down in a bamboo chair that was more comfortable that it looked.

“Phil’s alive,” Clint repeated, though it was less of a question this time and more of a statement, as though he was settling that thought in his mind. “How long?”

“No idea, to be honest,” Tony replied. “Pepper almost stabbed him with her shoe when he popped up in a meeting.”

Clint smiled slightly. “I’d have paid to see that.” He frowned again. “Why are you here?”

“Phil wanted us to bring you in,” he repeated slowly. He frowned. “Clint? How much have you been drinking?”

Clint shrugged. “Not much.” He rubbed his forehead. “I get headaches.”

The thoughts he’d had on the flight over here came back to Tony and he went very still. “How long have you been having the headaches?”

“Um, since a couple of months after we got arrested.”

Tony sucked in a breath. That was when Wanda had been handed over to the Sokovian authorities and had been executed. Was this some sort of backlash from her magic?

Clint licked his lips. “I’m not okay, am I?”

“No, I don’t think you are.”

“It’s Wanda.”

Tony gave a start and stared at Clint. That was the last thing he was expecting to hear from the man after how protective –and aggressively protective at that – he’d been in the past.

“We’re not sure,” he finally said. “But it might be.”

“I don’t…” Clint frowned and scrubbed his face with both hands. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

Tony leaned forward. “Clint?” He waited until the other man was looking at him. “I’ve come to take you back to the Compound. There’s someone there who can have a look at your head and see what’s going on.”

Clint nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

“Okay. Go pack what you need, okay?”

Tony watched as Clint got up and ambled back into the bedroom. He tapped his watch and got an acknowledgement from FRIDAY that she’d been monitoring the conversation and would pass it on to Carol and Rhodey. Hopefully Stephen would be able to come over as soon as they got back and actually give them some answers. Clint came out of the bedroom carrying a full duffel bag and his bow case and quiver. Tony got up and gestured towards the door.

“Do you need to tell anyone where you’re going?”

Clint blinked. “Oh, you mean Trinh. Nah, she’ll look after the place whether I’m here or not.”

“Okay,” Tony said slowly then he ushered Clint out of the house. It wasn’t far to where he’d parked the quinjet and Clint actually brightened when he saw the jet.

“I miss flying them.”

“Well, maybe not this time,” Tony said as he got Clint onto the jet and settled into a seat. He then took his place in the pilot’s chair. “But soon, yeah?”

Clint nodded and Tony turned his attention to everything he needed to do to leave Thailand. The Thai authorities were unusually agreeable and Tony got the feeling they were quite pleased to have Clint out of their jurisdiction even though there were no signs that he’d been doing anything other than laying low and earning a few dollars from the tourists.

The flight back was quiet and when Tony glanced around, Clint seemed to be asleep. He put the jet onto autopilot and pulled out a tablet, summarising everything Clint had said and all of his speculations and sent them through to Carol and Rhodey. There was a bit of back and forth at that point as Stephen joined the conversation and a plan was put in place for when they finally got back. Rhodey also said he’d contact the Accords Council and let them know that there might be mitigating circumstances in Clint’s case. That could make things interesting but they’d have to wait and see what Stephen had to say.

Their arrival back at the Compound was calm and quiet at Tony’s request. The Defenders were off doing whatever they normally did and Carol had ensured that Thor and Bruce would keep Loki well away. Only Carol was waiting when the jet landed as they’d felt a neutral face might be the best option. She stepped forward when they got off the plane and held out her hand with a smile.

“Hello, Mr Barton. I’m Carol Danvers, one of the field commanders for the Avengers.”

Clint shook her hand and frowned a little. “Field commander?”

“We’ve… done some restructuring,” Carol said, her smile never faltering as she drew Clint into the Compound, Tony following along behind. “I’m military and felt all lost and at sea without it.”

Clint managed a small smile and he looked around as they walked through the corridors of the Compound. When they emerged into the common area, he came to an abrupt halt and stared at the floor where there had once been a large hole. A complicated expression squeezed Clint’s face into a frown and he hung his head.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

Tony hesitated then placed a hand on Clint’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

With a little encouragement, Clint kept moving and they walked into the lounge area where Rhodey and Stephen were waiting.

“Clint,” Tony said. “This is Dr Stephen Strange. He’s the Sorcerer Supreme and he’s agreed to examine you and see what’s going on with your head.”

“Hello, Mr Barton,” Stephen said. “Are you okay with me doing this?”

Clint hesitated then nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

Stephen gave him a long look then nodded. “Alright. Sit down please.”

Clint did so and then Stephen raised his hands. He made a series of complicated motions and a large golden mandala formed. Stephen thrust his hands forward and the mandala moved forward and settled over Clint, glittering golden on his skin for a moment before fading. Clint flinched at first but it obviously didn’t hurt or anything like that because he immediately relaxed. Stephen cocked his head, frowning a little at whatever the spell had told him, then he repeated the process two more times. Once he was done, he nodded to himself and looked at Clint.

“Would you like the others to leave before I tell you what’s going on?”

Clint shook his head. “Nah, they can stay.”

“Alright,” Stephen said as he sat down opposite Clint. “First of all, there are still some remnants from what Loki did with the Mind Stone in your mind. Old pathways that he created, if you wish to put it that way.”

They all saw the way Clint turned a little green and Tony was relieved he’d kept Bruce in the loop with instructions to make sure Loki didn’t get it in his mind to drop in today.

“I’ve already examined Tony’s mind as part of his therapy,” Stephen continued. “What Ms Maximoff did to him is not what she did to you. She hasn’t induced any nightmares or visions. She has, to put it bluntly, used those old pathways…”

Stephen abruptly broke off and frowned. “Mr Barton, may I perform one more test on you?”

Clint swallowed then nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said hoarsely.

Tony noticed the way Clint was trembling but let Stephen finish before he moved over to sit next to his former teammate. He had some issues with what Clint had done and things he’d said, it was true, but this was more important than that. He knew he’d done the right thing when Clint shot him a wan smile and relaxed just a little.

“We have a problem,” Stephen said, looking very grim. “It’s not a case that Maximoff _used_ the pathways the sceptre left in his mind, it’s that she’s _using_ the pathways. Present tense, not past tense.”

There was a moment of silence before Tony spoke, “Are you saying… she’s not dead?”

“The magic in them is new and fresh,” Stephen said. “And there is some sort of… link or bond leading away from Mr Barton to presumably Ms Maximoff.”

“But she was executed,” Carol objected.

“You might want to double check that,” Stephen replied dryly.

Clint was trembling again. “What the fuck is she doing to me?” he demanded, his voice hoarse and angry.

“She’s feeding into your primary emotions,” Stephen said. “In this case, exacerbating your despair over your current situation. I believe she’s also depressing your thought processes so you won’t realise this is being externally imposed on you. I can’t tell you why however.”

“Is she why Clint…” Tony broke off and grimaced.

“Why I what?” Clint asked.

Tony gave him a long look then sighed. “Why you seemed so eager to protect someone who manipulated minds after your experiences with Loki.”

Clint stared at him blankly for a moment then he slowly frowned. “Shit. I did, didn’t I? Why did I do that?”

Tony exchanged glances with the others then turned to Stephen. “Can you cut that link?”

Stephen hesitated for a moment. “I can but do we want to?” He held up a hand as Clint suddenly became animated with anger. “My apologies, Mr Barton, that was poorly phrased. Do we want to _right now_?”

“She’ll know if you do?” Tony asked.

“It’s possible,” Stephen replied. “And if that happens then she will know we know she’s still alive.”

Clint settled back. “Oh. Yeah. But you can remove it?”

“I can,” Stephen said firmly. Then he paused and looked thoughtful. “Though… there is possibly something I can try. It won’t remove the link but it will… partition it, if you like. Lock it up behind a wall and allow you to think clearly and without her influence.”

Clint stared at him. “Yeah,” he breathed. “That. Let’s do that. I can’t fucking _think_ like this.”

Stephen nodded and raised his hands. Once again, he moved through strange but precise hand motions and the golden mandala appeared. This time when it wrapped itself around Clint, it stayed for a moment, then it gleamed and pulsed and Clint gave a cry and clutched at his head. A moment later, he relaxed again and the gold disappeared.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, looking around at all of them. Even with just that, there was more colour and life in his face and eyes. 

“How do you feel?” Tony asked.

“Holy shit,” Clint repeated. “How long have I been feeling like shit?”

“You went a bit strange during the whole Ultron mess,” Tony said neutrally.

“Fuck,” Clint said. “Why the fuck did we blame you for that? I mean, I know shit about computers but even I know what it means when you said that the interface wasn’t ready.”

Tony twitched and felt something deep in his chest uncurl at Clint’s unguarded statement. He wouldn’t deny that having his teammates turn on him like that during that whole mess had hurt more than he’d thought it would. He hadn’t expected people like Steve or Clint to fully understand what he had been trying to do but he had hoped they would _trust_ him, to know he was the one with the expertise in the field and to _trust_ him.

“Tony?” Clint gently poked him with one finger then turned and gave the others a slightly wonky grin. “I’ve made him blue screen.”

That dragged a laugh out of Rhodes. “Yeah, you did.” He then raised an eyebrow. “Quite the renaissance in your personality there.”

“Fuck,” Clint said, scrubbing his face with one hand. “I feel like I’ve been living in fog. The only thing that ever made me feel like I could see clearly was… getting angry. So I started defaulting on feeling angry about everything.”

“That wasn’t entirely your fault,” Stephen said. “Ms Maximoff was… pushing your brain into reacting the way she wanted it to.”

Clint grimaced. “So I got fucked over again.”

“Yes,” Stephen said, not inclined to sugar coat things. Clint didn’t look like he minded. “Once we’ve dealt with Ms Maximoff, I will remove her influence from your mind and I believe Wong will be able to make something that will protect you from any further intrusions.”

Tony, who had gotten his brain back in gear, suddenly winced. “Ah, right. There’s something we need to tell you, by the way.”

Clint nodded. “Sure. What?”

“Loki’s here,” Tony said. “Not _here_ here but on Earth here.”

Clint shuddered. “Why?” he said stiffly.

“I guess you haven’t been paying much attention,” Tony replied. “Which is kind of understandable. Thor rolled up about a month ago with Bruce, Loki and the remnants of Asgard. Some major shit went down and Asgard was destroyed. There’s a few hundred people left. Thor sought sanctuary for them on Earth, offering their warriors as protection for Earth against anyone who might come for us in exchange.”

“And he brought Loki with him,” Clint said with distaste.

“Yep,” Tony replied. “In Loki’s defence… and I can’t believe I’m saying that about the dude who tossed me out a window… he was, in some ways, as much a victim as you were. He wasn’t being mind controlled like you were but he was on a pretty tight leash with some dire threats hanging over his head.” Tony cocked his head. “Not that I’m saying you have to like him or even want to be in the same room as him, just… be warned that Thor’s pushing for him to join the Avengers.”

Clint looked uncomfortable. “Are you going to accept him?”

“We haven’t decided,” Carol said, drawing Clint’s attention over to her. “There are a lot of advantages to it since he’s a powerful magic user but...” She grimaced. “We won’t have anyone associated with the Avengers name who is going to cause trouble on his off duty hours.”

“Right now he’s being coy about how much he’s willing to behave,” Tony added. “Trouble seems to be pretty much his middle name but if we can curtail it to mischievous trouble instead of hurting people trouble, the Council would like us to strongly consider taking him on. They much prefer the idea of him doing something productive instead of being left to his own devices. And I have to admit that they kind of have a point there.”

“There’s also another factor involved,” Rhodes said heavily. “Loki was held prisoner by Thanos. He’s a Titan and was the actual driving force behind the invasion. He wanted the tesseract because it holds something called an Infinity Stone. So did the sceptre. Thanos wants all of them and according to Loki, he will come back to Earth searching for them.”

Clint grimaced. “So Vision’s in danger.”

Tony nodded. “He is and he knows. He’s been spending time with the Asgardians, trying to find a way to either shield the stone or even remove it without killing him. There’s also a third stone here on Earth. Stephen’s the guardian of it.”

“The Time Stone,” Stephen said. “The tesseract holds the Space Stone and Vision had the Mind Stone.”

“Well, shit,” Clint said. “I… don’t know about Loki though.”

“No one’s asking you to be friends with him or like him,” Tony said quickly. “Or even be around when he’s here. Just… don’t shoot him in the face and we’ll be fine. We’ll make sure he knows that any attempts to fuck around with you are unacceptable. We already do that with Barnes.” He snorted. “I mean, I’m sure he _will_ fuck around just for shits and giggles but if we can keep it to harmless pranks, that’ll be a start.”

“I’ll keep an eye on things, boss,” FRIDAY said.

“Thanks, FRI,” Tony said. He arched an eyebrow at Clint. “How does that sound?”

Clint nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay, I guess we can see how it goes.”

“Alright. FRI, take note and manage things the best you can when Loki’s here,” Tony said. “We can also get you in to see my therapist if you’d like. She’s good and discreet.” He smiled wryly. “She’d have to be both if I was going to stick with her.”

Clint nodded again then Carol took him off to show him to his room and get him settled and Stephen returned to the New York Sanctum to write up a report of what he’d found in Clint’s mind for the Council. That left Tony and Rhodey sitting in the living room.

“Maximoff still alive and god knows where, Clint not the asshole we thought he was and an impending invasion from outer space,” Rhodey said dryly. “What fun.”

Tony laughed. “Well, no one can say our lives aren’t interesting.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Bucky have another chat about the past and then the present rears its head and some of the plans in the works are revealed.

“So why didn’t you have me charged for your parents’ murders?”

Bucky and Tony were the only ones left in the common room at the end of their movie night. Tony had been working the whole time. Not Avengers stuff but SI work that he’d muttered something about needing to get done before Pepper came after him with a shoe. Bucky had seen the kind of shoes Pepper Potts normally wore and was of the opinion that was a credible threat. Those shoes she wore had heels that were practically weapons in and of themselves. Unsurprisingly, Winter adored them.

Rhodes and Carol had already left together to do… whatever it was that Rhodes and Carol did when they left together. Bucky had a fair idea but hadn’t questioned it. Carol Danvers was an impressive woman and even more so when she was in full Captain Marvel mode. She’d put him on his ass more than once in training and as such, Winter thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

_I like people who can kick our ass. Is that so bad?_

_No_ , Bucky replied. _It is a little weird though._

Winter snorted but didn’t say anything else.

The Defenders had left to find an all-night diner after Danny Rand had made an offhand comment about never having been to one and asking whether or not they were all they were cracked up to be as seen in the movies. The other Defenders had looked at him aghast and immediately dragged him off. Danny had been remarkably pliant about the whole thing and Bucky suspected he’d made the comment deliberately. Danny had a tendency to be taken to school by the other Defenders for… a variety of reasons that mostly stemmed from Danny being rich, male and white… and more than a little tone-deaf. He was clearly learning from the experience but the other Defenders didn’t really possess the tact or diplomacy to do it nicely. Nor should they, from Bucky’s point of view. But he felt that occasionally Danny deliberately let slip something that would let them school him in less… butt-kicking ways about something they’d all enjoy.

Bruce and Thor had dragged Loki off before he could start saying things that would cause trouble. Actually, Loki had been surprisingly mild during the movie and indeed his entire visit to the Compound – Thor was still negotiating with the UN about Loki, Bucky didn’t envy him the task – but after the movie, he’d gotten this glint in his eyes that hadn’t boded well at all. It was almost as if he’d been good all day and now he’d just reached a point where he couldn’t hold it in any longer. Who knows where it would have ended up if Thor and Bruce hadn’t intervened since just as that glint had entered Loki’s eyes, Tony had looked up and seen it and a matching glint had entered his eyes. 

Thankfully, Clint had spent most of the day in his room, mostly avoiding Loki. Tony had offered to postpone the visit or let Clint take one of his cars and just go off and do whatever he wanted but Clint had just shaken his head and said it was fine but he wasn’t ready to face the God of Mischief just yet. Bucky didn’t blame him. Loki drove both him and Winter nuts but Loki had also learned to behave himself since while Bucky would keep his retaliation to just words and occasional pranks, Winter had no such compunctions and Thor just tended to laugh if Winter stabbed Loki, saying something about what comes around, goes around. And Vision was still consulting with the Asgardians but had promised to come home in a few weeks.

“Hmm?” Tony said, dragging himself out of his work and Bucky tried to ignore how he felt with the knowledge that Tony felt safe enough around him to bury himself in his work.

“Why didn’t you have me charged with your parents’ murders?”

Tony stared at him for a moment then sighed. He tapped the screen of his tablet for a moment then he set it aside. “What purpose would it have served?”

Bucky frowned. “I… don’t understand?”

“What purpose would it have served?” Tony asked. “What would it achieve? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the DA was ready and eager to file charges but I… made an appointment and asked him not to.”

“Why?” Bucky knew he sounded plaintive but he couldn’t help himself.

“You mean, apart from the fact that it would have been wasting everyone’s time because the Winter Soldier defence would have been valid and since the precedent had been set in the ICC court, the courts here would have to accept it?” Tony asked, raising an eyebrow. He then sighed. “There was no value in it. It wouldn’t be a deterrent or lesson or anything else that a sentence might be deemed to be. It wouldn’t make me feel vindicated or better. It wouldn’t have achieved anything except punish the wrong people. You and Winter… well, frankly, neither you nor Winter were really responsible for it.”

Tony now sat up straight. “ _HYDRA_ is guilty of my parents’ murders, not you.” He grimaced. “And frankly, there are better targets for the DA to go after.”

“The DA is going to go after HYDRA?” Bucky said dubiously. “That’s…”

Tony chuckled. “No, he isn’t. Though he has said that if the police or anybody else ever finds and arrests whoever gave the order, he damn well is going to prosecute them to the full extent of the law. I wished him luck.” He shook his head ruefully as he sobered. “No, there are people who covered everything up. Getting guilty verdicts on conspiracy charges looks just as good as getting a guilty verdict on a murder charge and a lot better than having a murder charge thrown out.”

Bucky now looked curious. “Conspiracy charges?”

Tony suddenly looked very grim and Bucky wondered whether he’d been right to bring up the subject. He almost kicked himself but when he looked at Tony closely, he didn’t looked distressed, just determined and a little weary.

“There were a lot of people involved in the aftermath of that incident,” Tony explained. “Police, paramedics, you name it, they were there. It was a… celebrity death. It was a damn circus.” He looked soberly at Bucky. “How many people saw the mess that was made of my father’s face and the bruising on my mother’s neck – _not_ a type of injury usually associated with a car crash – and did or said nothing? Why didn’t they say or do anything?” Now he began to look unhappy and Bucky winced at the reminder of what he’d done to Howard and Maria. “And why did two people I _trusted_ , who went in and identified their bodies, not say anything about the obvious non-crash related injuries.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, okay, in hindsight I can understand why Obie would have kept quiet. It was the proverbial manna from heaven for him. Mom and Dad out of the way, me still under age and malleable. Gold for him.” He paused and his face hardened. “Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t involved somehow. That my parents were going on holiday that day wasn’t a secret and the route was an obvious one but not many people knew what he was carrying in the car. Hell, _I_ didn’t know until recently.”

Bucky wanted to say something, to stop him, anything, but Winter quickly piped up, _No, let him speak. He needs to say this. And maybe we need to hear it._

“But what I can’t answer,” Tony said and now hurt coloured his voice. “Is why Aunt Peggy would have hidden what happened. Why _she_ covered it up. She went with Obie to the morgue to identify the bodies. She would have seen the injuries and she would have known they weren’t from a car crash.” When Tony met his eyes, there was a wealth of pain and betrayal in their depths. “She never said a word. In fact, she actively let me think Dad was drunk behind the wheel.”

Bucky remembered Peggy Carter, not well but enough. She’d been bold and brassy and gorgeous and he remembered teasing Stevie about how he’d managed to snare a dame so out of his league. He wouldn’t have thought the Peggy Carter he’d known would do something like that but then… what he’d heard of Howard when he was older didn’t tally with what he remembered of the younger Howard. He guessed they’d changed a lot.

“And I can’t ask either of them,” Tony continued. “Because they’re dead. All I can do is hunt through SHIELD and HYDRA’s records and hope there’s an answer there.”

“I wish I could tell you something,” Bucky said quietly. He wondered if Winter might pitch in his ten cents worth but his alter ego was… oddly distracted. “But they never told us why we were being sent after someone.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I figured. You don’t tell a gun why you’re shooting someone with it.” He sighed. “So, yeah… that’s why I asked the DA to drop the charges. There were a lot more people involved in Mom and Dad’s deaths than just you and a lot of them are a hell of a lot more culpable because their involvement was willing and voluntary.”

“Have they come up with anything?”

Tony shrugged. “Not much thus far. The police have a team working on it and they’ve been tracing everyone who was on site. You know, the paramedics and police who responded and so on. It hasn’t been easy. A lot of them are dead.”

Bucky went very still. “Dead? Or… _dead_?”

“A bit of both,” Tony said with a knowing look and a nod. “There are at least some that were legitimately of natural causes as far as they can tell but there are definitely some that are under suspicious circumstances, either determined at the time or something they’ve realised now that they’re reviewing the case.”

“You’re staying out of it?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, they’ve come to me a few times to do some deep tracking, mostly in the data dump, that they don’t have the technology to do themselves, which I’ve generally handed over to either FRIDAY or the kids at SI, but mostly I’m leaving the investigation to the experts. It’s best if I stay out of it anyway.”

Now Bucky suddenly felt Winter prodding at him and he allowed his alter ego to take over.

“ _I_ can tell you something,” Winter said. “It wasn’t Carter.”

Tony looked momentarily confused then he realised who was talking to him. “What?”

“I don’t know what happened between Carter and Stane going to identify the bodies and them coming back and telling you it was an accident,” Winter said. “But Carter wasn’t involved in any cover up for HYDRA.”

“How do you know?” Tony asked, cocking his head curiously.

“Because she suspected they were involved or was at least heavily investigating the possibility,” Winter replied. “They woke me up. They had all sorts of people running around looking panicked and I distinctly remember some of the lab techs talking about why she was coming after them when ‘things had been taken care of’.”

Tony now sat up and looked at him intently. “They woke you up to… assassinate her?”

Winter nodded. “Yes. But it went nowhere and I was eventually put back on ice.”

“Why?”

Winter shrugged then started reciting facts in what the others called his Soldat voice. “Early 1992. February 1st. President Bush meets President Yeltsin at Camp David. Cold War formally declared over. March 1st. Bosnia-Herzegovina votes for independence. Conditions ripe for interference, SHIELD to control events, HYDRA to push further towards war.”

Tony nodded slowly. “So, she got distracted by world events?”

Winter nodded as well. “Yes. By the time she was able to come back to it, HYDRA elements in SHIELD had finished the cover up and there was nothing more to find to implicate anyone other than Howard Stark.”

Bucky and Winter watched as Tony shuddered and his shoulders slumped just a little and they both felt pleased and grateful.

_You don’t remember anything else?_ Bucky asked quietly.

_No_ , Winter replied. _They didn’t talk to me unless it was orders or the words._

_Yeah._

“Thank you,” Tony said with a small, weak smile. “That… makes me feel a lot better.”

They were distracted from their conversation by Clint shuffling into the room, rubbing his forehead.

Tony immediately frowned. “What’s up, Legolas? Head still hurting?”

Clint nodded and flopped down on one of the sofas. “Yup. Strange warned me it’d happen if Wanda was really pushing it but that she wouldn’t know it wasn’t working.”

Tony nodded and Barnes remembered that Stephen had said that he’d essentially moved the link in Clint’s mind into a sort of mirror dimension where everything seemed the same but Clint would be largely unaffected. Not totally unaffected as he was proving now but most of the time.

“She must know you’re back here,” Tony said with a grimace. There had been a brief press release from the UN about Clint’s return that had largely been ignored by the media other than a few minor questions that had been easily batted away. But no doubt Wanda had been paying attention wherever she was, or whoever Wanda was with was paying attention. “I’ll let Carol and Rhodey know we need to step up our search.”

“It’s not as bad as it was before,” Clint said. “I can handle it.” He flicked his gaze over to Barnes and quirked an eyebrow, looking faintly hopeful. “Did Winter stab Loki again?”

Bucky grinned as Tony chuckled quietly. Apparently Clint’s therapist had said that after what had happened to him, there was no harm in him enjoying that as long as he didn’t take it too far.

“Nah, Loki behaved himself,” Bucky replied. “And when he started looking like he’d had enough of being good, Thor and Bruce got him out of here.”

“We all know what happened last time,” Tony said sagely. “As much as I like seeing the big green guy, he’s awfully hard on the furniture.”

Bucky snorted. “As if you didn’t light up with the same look of mischief when Loki glanced at you.”

“I…” Tony hesitated for a moment. “Probably resemble that remark.”

“You like him?” Clint said dubiously but without the vitriol and contempt that might have been there before.

“Eh, he’s kind of like fungus,” Tony replied. “He grows on you.” He gestured towards the window. “Also, if he threw me out these windows, I wouldn’t be at risk of going splat on the pavement.”

Tony suddenly froze and Bucky and Clint watched with interest as they could almost watch his brain going into overdrive.

“Huh,” he finally said.

“Going to share with the class?” Bucky asked.

“Right before he threw me out of my own building, he tried to use his little glowstick of destiny on me,” Tony said slowly. He tapped his chest where the arc reactor had been. “Didn’t work. At first I figured it was just because the arc reactor was too much of a barrier but I did get some weird readings from it later, after the battle.”

“Yeah? And?” Clint said, looking confused.

“The sceptre held the Mind Stone,” Tony said.

Clint just frowned. “So?”

“That’s also where little Miss witchy bitchy got her powers from,” Tony said. “What if that’s why she was able to get into your mind so easily?”

Clint blinked. “Makes sense but how does it help?”

Tony leapt to his feet. “Come with me.”

Both Bucky and Clint followed him down to his workshop. Once there, Tony waved them towards a couple of the stools in the room then headed over to one of the walls. He placed his hand against part of the wall and it lit up, clearly reading his palm print. A small section popped open and Tony reached in and pulled out one of his suit-sized arc reactors. He brought it back and held it out to Clint.

“Here. Hold this.”

Clint took it with a baffled look them his expression abruptly cleared. “Whoa.”

“Headache gone?” Tony asked.

Clint nodded. “Yeah. What the fuck?”

Tony nodded at the arc reactor. “Dad worked that out from the tesseract… the Space Stone.”

“The Stones cancel each other out?” Bucky asked, fascinated.

“Something like that or something similar,” Tony said. “I’ll have to get the science gang together and we can play with Stephen as well.” He made a ‘gimme’ gesture to Clint. “Give me that and we’ll do some experimenting.”

Bucky watched with interest as Tony accepted the arc reactor from Clint. He’d be surprised but given that Tony had just handed the same thing to Clint moments before, that probably explained why he was willing to let Clint hand it back to him. Tony and Clint then proceeded to wander around the workshop and see just how far Clint could be from the arc reactor before his head started hurting again. Finally they all settled down at one of the benches.

“Keep that with you,” Tony said, gesturing towards the arc reactor.

Clint stared at him for a long moment before looking down at the reactor. “You want me to keep one of your arc reactors with me?”

Tony just raised an eyebrow. “Why? Were you planning on running off and selling that to the highest bidder?”

“No,” Clint replied.

“Then we’re fine,” Tony replied. “Keep it with you. You’ll be able to sleep, if nothing else.”

“Won’t that alert Maximoff that we’re onto her?” Bucky asked.

“Probably not,” Tony said with a grimace. “Come on, it’s not like she’s ever had any rational view of her own abilities. She probably thinks she’s got it all in hand. The fact that there was no difference in what Clint was feeling when we were testing just before makes me think she doesn’t get any feedback from Clint’s side of things. Or if she does, she’s ignoring it or doesn’t know how to interpret it.”

“That’s a lot of supposition,” Bucky said dubiously.

Tony shrugged. “That may be so but frankly if I’m going to prioritise anything here, it’s going to be Clint’s mental health.” He scowled. “I think we’ve spent far too long _not_ prioritising _everyone’s_ mental health, quite frankly.”

“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?” Clint said dryly.

“Yes,” Tony replied. “Which is why we’re all good little therapy patients now.”

“I mean, I’m not complaining because it’s nice not having a constant headache but I know finding her is important too,” Clint added.

“We’ll find her,” Tony replied. “Stephen and Wong have already localised her to somewhere in Eastern Europe and we’re planning a little trap for her with me as bait.”

“You’re _what_?” Clint and Bucky said in unison with a mix of surprise and alarm.

“I’m the best option,” Tony replied blithely. “She hates me and if she thinks I’m vulnerable and doesn’t know she’s alive, she’s absolutely going to take the opportunity presented to her. It’s just that this time, it’ll be a trap.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Bucky said pointedly.

“That’s why I have a team,” Tony said. “To come and rescue me.” He grinned. “Besides, don’t tell me that you don’t love the idea of letting Jess loose on Wanda.”

Bucky paused. “Well, yeah, okay… Winter and I both like that idea but this is crazy! And when were you planning on letting _your team_ know about this?”

“It’s on the docket for the meeting on Monday,” Tony replied. He gave Bucky a long look. “We’re just doing preliminary planning because if we go ahead with this, we need the set up to be perfect and look entirely normal so…” He shrugged. “Some of it had to go ahead _before_ we got the team on board.”

Bucky frowned. “That SI thing in Prague.”

Tony nodded. “Yep. We were still deciding where we were going to hold that and the original plan was to have it in Novi Grad to give Sokovia the boost but if we’re going to play chicken with the witch, I didn’t want it to be in Sokovia again. They’ve had enough of her. The Prague police and the Czech anti-terror command are willing to step up and help us and the JCTC will be involved as well. In that, apart from the media, pretty much the entire crowd there will be either us, police or anti-terror troops. Some will be tasked with getting the media out of the way and to safety, the rest will be either handling the perimeter or dealing with whoever else the witch brings with her.”

Bucky was a little mollified by that. “And we’ll be there.”

“Yes,” Tony said patiently. “You and the rest of the Avengers will be there.”

“What about me?” Clint asked.

“Uh, no,” Tony said, though it was fairly gentle. “One, you haven’t been cleared for active duty, two, we… don’t really know what your legal status is because we don’t have the full reports on how much witchy bitchy’s been influencing you, three, witchy bitchy _has_ been influencing you and that makes you a liability on the battlefield when she’s our enemy and four, the Czech Republic is part of the EU and you’re still persona non grata in all EU countries.”

Clint slumped a little. “Well, shit.”

“Winter said to tell you that we’ll shoot her extra good for you,” Bucky said sympathetically. He patted Clint on the shoulder, causing him to perk up again.

Tony shook his head but looked amused. “I feel like I should say something responsible and leaderly but frankly, I don’t know who put me in charge. It’s a terrible idea.”

“You’re doing fine,” Bucky said. “Even Winter thinks so.”

“Winter is a former assassin who has a loose association with the law,” Tony said. “So I’m not entirely comforted by that. I _am_ however comforted by the idea that if this all goes to shit – which let’s face it, it’s the Avengers so it probably will – I’ll have the Winter Soldier looking out for my ass.”

_Hell, yeah, he will_ , Winter said. _Because that is a very fine ass._

“Yes,” Bucky said, trying to ignore his alter ego, especially when Winter started expounding on the many ways in which Tony’s ass was the best and how much they both wanted said ass. “Yes, you will.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the lead up to the trap for Wanda, the Avengers do a little training, Peter breaks things, Tony geeks out with Bucky and the Defenders learn to integrate into the Avengers.

The simulation blared out a warning before abruptly shutting down, leaving the Avengers in the middle of the training room staring at a rather sheepish Peter Parker in full Iron Spider gear.

“Oops!” Peter said as his mask withdrew and he gave them all apologetic looks. “In my defence, the theory said that would work.”

Tony sighed and looked far more put upon than he was actually feeling. “Yeah, Pete, the theory works but it’s one of those things where the math is solid but when you try it in real life, it all falls in a heap.” He waved to the training room. “As you can see.”

“But that’s why I thought it would work,” Peter said earnestly. “Because the training room simulations are awesome but it’s still just a computer program and therefore it should look at the math and say it’ll work.” He looked crestfallen. “Except it didn’t.”

“Oh my god,” Tony muttered. “Did you seriously go all _Kobayashi Maru_ on me? What’s more did you really think I didn’t know about Scotty’s _Kobayashi Maru_ solution and plan for it?”

Peter frowned. “The what?”

Bucky came over and patted Tony on the shoulder of the armour. “I’m not sure he would have read that book, Tony.”

Tony looked at him with surprise. “Okay, when did _you_ read it?”

“During therapy,” Bucky replied. “I ran out of episodes in the TV series and my therapist told me about the books. They’re pretty cool.”

“That’s…” Tony felt like he needed to reboot his brain. The concept of nerdy Bucky Barnes was still sinking in and between science nerd Bucky and aggressively protective Winter, he was having trouble keeping his thoughts about Cap’s former bestie and his assassin alter ego in their proper place. The fact that the man was sinfully attractive now that he wasn’t sporting the unwashed hobo look wasn’t helping matters in the slightest. “We _have_ to come back to that later because I want to know your favourites. But… later.” He turned back to Peter. “I kind of designed this to reflect reality in all its messy glory, which is why your plan didn’t work.”

“Oh,” Peter said.

Tony placed an arm round his shoulders. “But it was a good idea. You should always be looking for weaknesses around you and taking advantage of them. Never make a plan and then marry it. You’ve got to be prepared to adapt on the run.”

Peter nodded and Tony clapped him on the shoulder before looking over at Carol.

“Okay, so… are we running this again or calling it a day?”

“I think we’ll call it a day,” Carol replied. “I want to look over what happened before Peter tried the impossible. We were getting boxed in despite everyone’s best efforts and I want to see how that was happening.”

“I got pushed out of position,” Jessica said, holding up one hand. “And I was struggling to get back _into_ position. That didn’t help.”

“And I kept being drawn further away,” Matt said with some frustration. “Every time I tried to disengage so I could get back, I’d get attacked again.”

“Okay,” Carol said with a nod. “I’ll concentrate on those parts.” She gave the Defenders a long look. “Do you think you need more practise working with a larger, more varied team?”

The four of them exchanged looks… or rather Jessica, Luke and Danny exchanged looks and Matt sighed.

“Probably but I don’t think that’s the main problem,” Luke admitted. “I think we need to look at maybe adding some extra strings to our bows. We’re all heavy hitters in our different ways but we basically come back to punching or hitting things really hard. We’re getting predictable and if I understand the way these simulations work, that means the programming is working against us.” He looked over at Tony. “You’ve put in some of the same tactics that have been used against Rogers before into this, haven’t you?”

Tony nodded. “That and some tactics that Carol and Rhodey and myself have come up with.”

“We’re getting manoeuvred around the battlefield because we’re predictable,” Luke said with a grimace. 

Carol looked very pleased with them. “Yes, you are. It’s something we identified a couple of months back after that fight in Central Park. We’ve got some ideas about how we can combat this but we want your input as well. There’s no point us suggesting things that you aren’t going to be comfortable doing.”

Luke looked contemplative. “We need to split up, don’t we? We’ve been essentially fighting as the Defenders within the Avengers but that’s not working. We need to split up and act as a series of separate focal points for the more mobile fighters.”

“In a sense,” Carol replied. “You and Jessica can fill that ‘stand and come at me’ type of role really well that allows Tony, Rhodes, Barnes and myself to bring in our skills to their utmost. We’d like to utilise Matt’s ninja skills more than we have been and Tony has some ideas about that if you’re willing to accept a new suit, Matt. And Danny, we need to get you more mobile so you can come in and act as a pinch-hitter with your big punch where and when needed in a similar way that Stephen does.”

Jessica and Luke looked interested in the idea as did Danny but Matt turned towards Tony. “What kind of suit did you have in mind?” he asked. It was difficult to see his expression behind the mask of his current suit but his voice was wary.

“Something along the lines of Pete’s suit,” Tony replied breezily. “Flexible so it doesn’t interfere with your agility and something that gives you a little more protection since you’re a madman who jumps into fights without any sort of invulnerability or special healing but also with some stealth capabilities that are more useful for the battlefield. I want it to work _with_ your abilities, not against them, so we’ll need to do some testing to make sure the tech isn’t fritzing out your freaky ninja skills.”

Matt now pushed the cowl of his suit back, his expression more interested. “Technology’s never really affected it in the past.”

“That’s good to know,” Tony said. “But there’s always a first time for everything, I’ve found, and it’s better to work out those problems beforehand.”

Matt looked in the direction of Luke and his raised eyebrow seemed to be all that Luke needed.

“I didn’t think I needed a suit either but this thing is awesome, man,” he said, gesturing towards the sleek reinforced leather jacket and trousers he was wearing. He strongly suspected that the original design had been a little less ‘pass for street wear’ and a little more patriotic but he didn’t mind. Their fighting styles were not dissimilar after all. And Jessica had been wearing her own version of the reinforced leather since they first joined up with the Avengers and raved about it regularly.

“Okay then,” Matt said slowly. “But…”

“And I know it’s kind of presumptuous of me to do this,” Tony said hurriedly and Matt could hear the way his heart was thumping in his chest. “But I like knowing my teammates are as safe as I can make them. And I kind of have control freak tendencies. But you don’t…”

“Tony,” Matt said firmly, cutting him off mid-ramble. “I was just going to ask if we could keep the… motif going.” He gestured to himself. “I’ve kind of gotten used to the whole ‘Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’ thing.”

“Please note that I’m giving you a very judging look right now,” Tony said but Matt could hear not only the shimmer of laughter in his voice but also the way Tony’s heart rate settled into something more normal.

“You know, that’s one of the advantages of being blind,” he said with a faint grin. “Judging looks are completely wasted on me. Besides, I think the man who flies around in a red and gold tin can is not in a position to be judging me.”

“He’s got you there, Tones,” Rhodey said from where he was standing next to Carol.

“Humph,” Tony said but he was definitely amused, not annoyed. “Fine. We’ll keep the whole devil thing going and I promise not to make it look like one of those sexy devil Halloween costumes.”

“I don’t know,” Jessica said, grinning. “That might strike more fear in the hearts of the crims than he does right now.”

Matt mimed smacking Jess and she danced out of the way with a laugh. Everyone else joined in the teasing until Carol cleared her throat and they all settled down.

“Alright,” she said. “Matt and Tony, get the suit sorted out and Defenders, I’ll make a time for us to meet about these changes. I’m thinking either tomorrow or the next day so let me know when is the best for you. We’ve still got two weeks left before the mission in Prague so we’ve got time to iron out as many of these problems as we can.”

There were nods and waves and everyone slowly dispersed. Tony deliberately lagged behind and when they saw that, both Carol and Rhodey did as well. Once the room was clear, Tony let the suit retract back into reactor as he gestured towards the small briefing room attached to the training facility.

“I got a call from the Council just before the session started,” he said after the door closed behind them.

“About Barton?” Rhodey asked.

Tony nodded. “Stephen and Wong met with them yesterday to present their report and explain what they’d found in Clint’s mind. The Council has agreed that Clint is allowed to train with us if he wants to but they’re not willing to clear him for active duty, even on a reserve basis, until he has a clean bill of health from one of the Council’s shrinks.”

Carol and Rhodey nodded. “That’s more or less what we expected,” Carol said.

“What about the EU?” Rhodey asked.

“The European reps on the Council are going to speak to their fellow EU ambassadors,” Tony replied. “But the word is not to expect anything to change in the near future. Germany’s ambassador is reasonably sympathetic but they’re not going to budge until Wanda is caught and the truth is out. And if they’re not budging, I doubt anyone else will.”

Carol sighed but she didn’t look surprised. “Do you want to tell Clint?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. We seem to be back to where we were before all that Ultron mess. Which kind of makes sense when you think about it.”

“Arrested development,” Rhodey said dryly.

Tony laughed. “Something like that. I need to give him the list of Council approved shrinks anyway.” He paused. “I’ll let Laura know what the latest is as well. She asked to be kept in the loop.”

“Has Clint tried to contact her since he got back?” Carol asked.

“No,” Tony replied. “FRIDAY would have flagged me at once if he’d even tried. In fact, he doesn’t talk about them at all, which I think is a defence mechanism. The one time I mentioned his kids, I think I sent him into some sort of spiral because he moped for the next three days.”

He looked a little guilty at that and Rhodey patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take that on yourself.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony said ruefully. “But last time I spoke to Laura, she sounded hopeful that maybe the kids could get their father back.”

“But not her husband?” Carol asked, looking concerned.

Tony grimaced. “Yeah, she… kind of avoided that part of the discussion. I think maybe that bridge has been burned and might not be able to be rebuilt.”

“Ouch,” Carol said with a wince.

Tony nodded. “Yeah. I mean, obviously any reconciliation is going to have to wait until we get Wanda out of his head since I’m not sure we want to risk the kids around him what that’s still there. But if we can give him some hope…”

Rhodey nodded with understanding. “Yeah. That might well help.”

Tony gave them a nod then and headed out of the room. He had a birdbrain to get up to date and then a suit to work on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to explain the _Kobyashi Maru_ reference, it's from one of the Star Trek TOS novels, very originally called _Kobayashi Maru_ and it references the TOS episode about that particular test. In the book, we hear about Scotty's turn at the test when he was at Starfleet Academy. Basically he's been talked into transferring into the command program because the higher ups thought he'd be an excellent commander. He hated it though because he just wanted to be an engineer. He undertook the _Kobayashi Maru _test and used a solution that was theoretically possible but wouldn't actually work in real life. One of the Admirals overseeing Scotty's test got annoyed at what he did and... transferred him back into the Engineering program. Ostensibly as punishment (because everyone's supposed to want to command, right?) for "cheating" but really because that Admiral was an engineer himself before he got talked into going into command and he didn't want to see a brilliant engineer like Scotty ending up like him.__
> 
> __I kind of feel like Tony would have empathised with that._ _
> 
> __Oh, and for those who aren't Star Trek nuts - the _Kobayashi Maru_ test is one every Command cadet has to go through. It's a no win situation. If they engage, no matter what the cadet does, the programming of the simulation will adjust for it and ensure that they lose. It's designed to allow the staff to see how each cadet will react to extreme stress and a no win situation because that's always a risk when you're in the Fleet. Kirk is the only cadet who has beaten it... because he cheated. He broke in and reprogrammed the simulator just before his third attempt at the simulation. He got away with it (and got a commendation as well) because the overseers were impressed with his original thinking._ _


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stark Industries presentation goes ahead in Prague and Tony was absolutely right - this is the Avengers. Of course something was going to go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this. I actually had this first part written a while back but I didn't want to post it until I'd written the second half, just in case I needed to change some thing, and the second half was giving me trouble. And ugh, I hate writing action scenes. Keeping track of everything is so hard.
> 
> On the other hand, I'll probably post the second part in the next couple of days.

Bucky peered down the scope of his rifle at the stage where Tony was shortly to appear. He’d firmly placed himself in the best position, glaring the Czech snipers who’d wanted to be there into submission without even needing to let Winter out to play. Not that Winter wasn’t champing at the bit right now but they both knew that Bucky was the better sniper. Winter was better at hand to hand and knives and it was pretty much a tie when it came to general gun usage but when it came to sniping, Bucky was the outright champ.

_I don’t like this_ , Winter growled.

Bucky snorted. _No one does._

_It puts him at too much risk._

_We know._

He could feel the way Winter was stewing in the back of his head and normally it might have given him a headache but he agreed with everything Winter was muttering about. The plan put Tony at too much of a risk but no one could come up with a better one. Tony _was_ the best person to use as bait. Maximoff hated him and given a chance to get her slimy hands on him, they were confident she’d jump at it. And given that Vision had felt her magic in the vicinity, they knew that she had.

_We can just shoot her, right?_

Bucky sighed. _You were in the same briefing I was. You know our mission parameters._

Winter snarled. _She’s too dangerous to leave alive._

_I know._ Bucky scanned the crowd that was gathering. _There is a loophole though. I’m pretty sure Rhodes and Carol know about it but they said nothing to close it off._

He could feel the way Winter perked up in his mind. _Oh?_

_If anyone feels that they’re at imminent personal risk of injury, mental assault or death from the witch, they can use lethal force._

Winter chewed that over. _He won’t. He’s ridiculously soft-hearted. It’s adorable but it means he won’t take the shot._

Bucky hummed. _I wouldn’t take that bet actually._

_What do you know?_

_I think he’s had enough of mollycoddling them_ , Bucky replied. _There was something about his expression in the briefing. He’ll try to capture her but he’s not going to hold back._

_That’s still not a guarantee._

_There are no guarantees in life_ , Bucky said dryly. _But it’s the best we’re going to get unless you want to get in her way._

He realised that he should have expected Winter’s enthusiasm at the idea so he waved some of their shared memories of the Chair at his alter ego until he calmed down. 

_You know Tony wold freak out if we got anywhere near her_ , Bucky said, a deliberate choice of words to get through to Winter. It worked.

_Fine_ , Winter said with obvious frustration. Bucky could also hear the thin thread of a fear that he knew Winter would never admit to feeling. Winter wasn’t afraid of much but Maximoff was an exception. Her mind control abilities were horrifying, given their background. Since they’d found out she was still alive, Tony had been digging into the SHIELD data dump as well as whatever else he could find to see what he could dig up about what had been done to the twins, even going back to Sokovia to the HYDRA base there – with permission from the Sokovian government, who were staging their own little internal witch hunt to find out how she’d escaped. Bucky and Winter had wanted to go with him but that had been vetoed. Neither of them had been pleased but Rhodes, Luke and Jess had gone with him so they’d been at least a little mollified.

The crowd noise grew as Tony strutted out on stage in full showman persona, Rhodey at his side and Stephen and Luke taking their positions behind them, disguised as security guards. Bucky set all other thoughts aside and focused on his job, scanning the crowd for Maximoff. He easily picked up Jessica and Carol, also dressed as security guards, standing down in front of the stage. Matt was sitting unobtrusively off to one side with a StarkPad in his lap. No doubt people would take him for a reporter or an assistant of some description. That was if they noticed him at all. He was doing a very good job of being invisible. 

Danny, he knew, would be standing behind the scenes, out of sight. It would have looked strange for Danny Rand of Rand Enterprises to turn up to a Stark Industries event so he had to stay hidden for now. Vision was… Bucky swept the nearby buildings and found Vision lurking on the roof of a building not far away. He was staying strictly out of sight and he was wearing a medallion Strange had given him that hid the magical signature of the Mind Stone. Both Vision and Strange didn’t think it was necessary since Wanda hadn’t shown any signs of being able to detect Vision’s presence but they’d also decided not to leave anything to chance.

Peter was at home, much to his annoyance. He’d done his best to try and convince Tony to let him come and Bucky had laughed at how close Tony had come to caving to Peter’s absolutely epic puppy eyes. Luckily for Tony, Carol and Rhodes had been there as well and they were far more immune to Peter’s _eyes_. Also, May hadn’t given her permission and that had pretty much ended that. Peter had been very grouchy about it all. Bucky felt for him. The kid was almost eighteen and therefore able to become a full member of the Avengers but almost wasn’t good enough. 

Bucky swept his gaze over the anti-terror troops hidden on the rooftops and around the plaza. They were all alert and ready and miracle of miracles, all the police who were masquerading as press or spectators were actually behaving like they were press or spectators and not looking too obviously like they were police in disguise. All in all, he couldn’t argue that they had the entire place covered and everyone was on the ball and ready. It still didn’t stop the unsettled feeling in his gut and the way his scalp was prickling. 

He listened with half an ear as Tony started up his speech, talking about Stark Industries’ latest advances in the field of medical assistance technology and the new production facilities planned for not only the Czech Republic but also countries like Sokovia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. As he scanned the crowd, he saw that the real press journalists looked excited and pleased and he didn’t blame them. For that matter, so did most of the local police and anti-terror troops acting as media. He knew that SI’s hiring practices were considered world class and the kind of facilities SI was planning on building would provide a huge boost to the employment in the region and also a timely boost to their economies.

Bucky saw the flash of red at the same time that Winter snarled, _There!_ “Left of the stage,” he snapped into his comm unit. “Brown top, blue jeans, her hair’s dyed brown as well.”

Everyone started to move at once. As Bucky watched, Stephen and Luke lurched forward, Luke reaching out to grab Tony’s arm and Stephen’s hands already moving. Jessica and Carol had clearly seen Maximoff as well and were already herding the gathered media and spectators away with the assistance of the concealed police. Rhodes was also reaching for Tony and Matt was rising to his feet. For his part, Bucky was trying to get a clear shot on the witch, mission parameters be damned.

But before any of them could finish their actions, red mist lashed out. It was fast and despite all that Stevie had claimed, clearly well-controlled. Bucky saw Stephen throwing up a shield against it that held but everyone else, including Tony, was knocked back and from what he could see knocked out as well. When the wave of red mist fell, Stephen immediately dropped his shield and produced a thin rope of pure energy and lashed it towards Maximoff like a whip. As he did the Cloak detached itself from Stephen’s shoulders and flew towards Tony, wrapping itself around him like a blanket and lifting him up. Bucky tried to aim at Maximoff but the red mist was twisting and warping around her and he couldn’t get a clear shot.

Stephen raised his glowing lash again but then he suddenly lurched forward and dropped like a stone. Almost simultaneously, Maximoff whirled around and lashed out at Vision, who had been swooping down with determined intent, sending him careening into a nearby building. In a spine-chilling display of power and viciousness, Maximoff then ripped out a piece of rebar and drove it deep into Vision’s head. The synthezoid went still and limp and Bucky could only hope he was still alive. 

From behind where Stephen had been standing came a man wearing a symbol Bucky was very familiar with and he suspected Danny was out of commission as well, even if he hadn’t been caught in Maximoff’s blast. With Winter’s snarled encouragement, Bucky focused his sights on the man and fired without hesitation. The man jerked backwards and fell, his brains bursting out of the back of his skull and splattering the stage and the curtains. Bucky immediately turned his aim on Maximoff but that small delay to eliminate the HYDRA operative had been all she’d needed. Despite the Cloak’s best efforts to get Tony out of the way, both of them had been caught in a dense red mist and Maximoff was sprinting towards a vehicle that was careening into the plaza, dragging Tony and the Cloak with her. Bucky fired at her but her magic was swirling around both her and Tony and he saw his bullet veer away to smack into a nearby wall. There was no point trying again, especially when she pulled Tony up to shield her.

Bucky dropped his sniper rifle and let Winter take over in a heartbeat, though he stayed near the surface to observe and offer what help he could. The time for sniping was over and Winter was far better suited for what was likely to happen now. Winter grabbed his assault rifle and charged over to the side of the building. They dropped down the metal stairs there in a series of bone-jarring falls that if not for the bastardised version of the serum that flowed through their veins would have had them crippled. It only took a few seconds but as he ran out into the plaza, the van screeched away, leaving only unconscious bodies in its wake. 

Winter took off after the van anyway, with Bucky’s approval. The other officers who had been above the witch’s attack were running out of their respective buildings so they felt no need to stay and help. The officers were better trained to handle this side of things and in the end, they were ordinary humans. Bucky and Winter were not. They’d been enhanced and as such, they were better served trying to run down the van. They’d memorised as much of the city surrounding the plaza as they could but the van still lost them in the twists and turns of the city’s streets. Finally Winter was forced to admit that the van was gone and he let loose with a stream of Russian invective.

“Rhodes? Strange? Anyone there?” he demanded into the comms. 

There was initially no answer then FRIDAY spoke. “They’re all still down, Winter. I’m tracking Boss as we speak.”

“Where?” Winter demanded.

“Hold a moment,” FRIDAY said and Winter growled.

A second later, a police car screeched up beside him and a young policeman leaned over. “Miss Friday says I am to help you.” 

He looked a little startled and shell-shocked either by the scene in the plaza or by having Tony’s AI make what he was sure were forceful demands but Winter didn’t much care either way. He yanked the door opened and got in.

“FRIDAY?” he snapped, a tiny part of him amused by the way the policeman flinched. 

The GPS in the car lit up and displayed a map of the city and a single flashing dot that was moving quickly. “That is Boss’ location,” FRIDAY said briskly through the car speakers.

Winter turned to the policeman. “Drive.”

The young man nodded frantically and turned on the lights and sirens as he hit the accelerator. Winter and Bucky knew that the Cloak would do whatever it could to protect Tony but Maximoff’s skill lay with the mind and that was enough to have Winter furious and both of them afraid.

_If she has harmed him, even mentally, she is dead_ , Winter growled and for once, Bucky had no argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that little bit of a cliffhanger? Oops! :D


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is in the hands of the Witch but the Cloak has some secrets up its sleeve. Metaphorically speaking since the Cloak doesn't actually have sleeves. Things don't go how they expected and Winter takes action. No, not that action. The other action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, the rest of the abduction and fight! See, I'm a nice author. I didn't make you wait too long. :D
> 
> I'm also taking some liberties with the Cloak's abilities but they do say that it's a magical artefact so it can have some magical abilities.

Tony woke up to a thundering headache and the realisation that he couldn’t move. Panic shot through him and his eyes flew open, only to find the collar of Stephen’s Cloak looming over him with what he could have sworn was concern. A quick glance down showed him that he had been wrapped up by the Cloak like a mummy and that the collar was trying to pantomime something urgently. He ignored the Cloak for the moment and looked around as best as he could. He was definitely in a van of some sort and he could see Wanda clutching the driver’s seat as she argued fiercely but softly with the man driving. 

He quickly put his head down before she could realise he was awake and tried to control his breathing, which had become erratic the moment he saw her. The Cloak got his attention again and started its little pantomime. Tony frowned, trying to understand it then the Cloak seemed to huff and shift and then he was wrapped up entirely, head to toe, not a single part of him showing, like a giant red cocoon. Tony drew in a deep breath, wondering if the Cloak was trying to… he didn’t know, smother him? Then he forced himself to calm down. The Cloak had never been violent to him and even seemed to like him and that was when he realised that he was perfectly able to breathe.

He didn’t want to draw Wanda’s attention but he figured that the Cloak would hear him if he whispered. “Can you stop her magic?” he breathed, barely audible.

The Cloak wriggled and a little fold formed in front of his face and, for lack of a better way of describing it, nodded. That made Tony relax a little. So as long as he stayed wrapped up in the Cloak he was safe. Maybe. Assuming the Cloak knew what it was talking about. It wasn’t the most comfortable position he’d ever been in but he’d been in worse and if the Cloak was right, he was happy to stay like this.

The van came to a sudden halt and Tony heard the sounds of someone, presumably Wanda, moving around. 

“I know you can hear me, Stark,” she said, her voice harsh and hate-filled. “Get this thing off.”

Tony made absolutely no move to do so. If the Cloak was right, he’d be an idiot to give her the opportunity. He heard her make a noise of anger and irritation and then… something happened. The Cloak rippled over his entire body but stayed where it was. Tony felt a weird sort of charge, something like an electric shock or static electricity, but nothing more than that. He guessed that Wanda had tried her magic on the Cloak and had failed. It made him relax just the tiniest bit. He then wriggled his fingers against the Cloak in a little caress.

“You okay?” he whispered softly enough that Wanda shouldn’t be able to hear him.

The Cloak gave him a comforting snug then the doors to the van opened and he had just enough time to hear Wanda start to complain to whoever was out there before he was suddenly sailing through the air, leaving startled and outraged shouts in his wake. It was the most bizarre sensation, a little like flying the armour without the HUD. He’d done that a couple of times with JARVIS early on so he was able to keep himself calm and not struggle against the Cloak and make its job harder. They took several twists and turns, going up and down at a speed he estimated was greater than even he would have tried indoors. And he was almost positive they were indoors. The way the shouts had echoed, muffled as they were by the Cloak, made that almost certain given he couldn’t actually see.

He had that confirmed when he was finally tipped upright and gently unwrapped and found himself in a dusty room filled with assorted junk. He glanced around to locate the door and any windows and shifted so that he was hidden from the door and the single window by some of the junk. Once he was secure, he looked over at the Cloak, which was hovering anxiously just next to him.

“No way out?”

The Cloak deflated and shook its collar.

“Doors and windows guarded or blocked?”

Again the ‘nod’ in reply. Tony glanced over at the window in the room and saw that there were iron bars on the outside, placed closely enough that he wouldn’t be able to squeeze through.

“Okay,” Tony said, patting his pockets. They obviously hadn’t had the time or opportunity to search him with how he’d been wrapped up and he grinned as he pulled his phone out. The signal strength wasn’t great and perhaps with any other phone, there might have been none at all but this was a StarkPhone and what’s more this was _his_ StarkPhone. He quickly called Rhodey’s number and wasn’t at all surprised when it was answered almost immediately.

“Tones!” Relief was etched on Rhodey’s face, though he also looked like he had the same killer headache that Tony did. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Tony replied. “The Cloak kept me safe and isn’t FRIDAY able to track me?”

“She can but you’re being held in a large factory complex with a lot of buildings and there’s something there that stopping her from isolating it down to an exact location.”

Tony grimaced. “I can’t help much. The Cloak had me trussed up pretty well to stop Wanda from whammying me.” He got up and made his way over to the window. “I’m safe in a disused room somewhere but I can’t see much from the window, just the roof and bits of a couple of buildings.” He quickly described what he could see. “I can’t tell you how many people are here but it’s Wanda, the driver and at least four or five others.”

“FRIDAY is picking up at least sixty heat signatures,” Rhodey replied and Tony winced. That many was not good. “Centred in multiple buildings. Winter is already there somewhere. FRIDAY’s keeping an eye on him and guiding him into the complex.” Rhodey’s expression suddenly changed. “Wait… I think we have you. We’ve got a single heat signature high up in the main building, isolated from all the others.”

“Yeah, probably me,” Tony replied. “The windows are all barred and the doors either locked or guarded so the Cloak wasn’t able to get me out of the building entirely. Can Stephen get in?”

“No,” Rhodey said with a grimace. “Not for lack of trying. Apparently he can normally centre in on the Cloak but something’s blocking him. Possibly the same thing that’s blocking FRIDAY. We’re not sure if it’s Maximoff that’s doing something or HYDRA have found some way. He’s gone for reinforcements from Kamar Taj. He wants Maximoff shut down now.”

“That makes two of us,” Tony replied. “Okay…”

“No,” Rhodey said firmly. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no. We know where you are, you’re safe for the moment with the Cloak and Winter’s making his way towards you.” He suddenly smiled ruefully. “I know you’re good at unkidnapping yourself and blowing shit up as you do so, Tones, but let us do it this time.”

“Aww, sugarplum, you just want to be my knight in shining armour,” Tony said fondly.

“While I do wear armour, I think that’s more Winter and Bucky,” Rhodey said dryly. “They’re more than a little steamed up about this.”

Tony knew he blushed at that and he knew Rhodey could see that. His friend kept his response to nothing more than a shit-eating grin though.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll stick where we are for now but I reserve the right to change that if they start getting near us.”

“Obviously,” Rhodey said. “We won’t be long, Tones. Hang in there.”

The call ended and Tony sat down with a sigh. He looked over at the Cloak, which was now hovering protectively near him. “I guess you heard all of that? Keep an ear… or whatever it is you have… out and let me know if anyone’s getting close to where we are.”

The Cloak made some complicated gestures and Tony found he could almost understand it. Maybe it was the years of deciphering the beeps and whistles of his bots.

“There’s no way up here except by flying?” he said carefully then grinned when the Cloak swirled around excitedly. “And by the roof, I assume.” The Cloak dipped in acknowledgement then took up its sentry position again.

Tony turned back to his phone. “FRI-girl?”

“Yes, boss?”

“Can you patch me into Winter’s comms?”

“Of course, boss. Patching you through now.”

“Hey, Winter,” Tony said cheerfully. “I’m okay, you know? Killer headache but nothing else. The Cloak is a champ.”

The Cloak preened in the immediate silence before Winter replied. “Where are you?”

“In an old… storage room, I think. Up on the top level of the main building,” Tony replied. “The only way up here from inside is by flying or levitating and the window has bars.”

He got a grunt in reply then there was a dull thud from far away. A few seconds later, Winter was peering in at him from the window. The look he got was tense and assessing and only when Winter was reassured that he wasn’t hurt did the assassin finally relax just a little. Before Tony could say anything though, Winter grabbed hold of one of the iron bars on the window with his metal arm and he began pulling.

Tony hurried over to the window. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Frosty! What are you doing?”

Winter gave him a look that said ‘what do you think, dumbass?’ and kept pulling. With a loud screech, the iron bar pulled free and Winter tossed it over his shoulder where it clanged on the roof then rolled down and thumped on the ground.

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. “Nice one, Winter. Now they know exactly where you are and by extension, where I am.”

Winter’s eyes narrowed and he pulled out his gun and brandished it. He then went back to pulling on the next iron bar.

Tony sighed again. “Use your words, Tastee Freeze. You might be able to talk to the Buckster without moving your mouth but I don’t have a direct line to your brain.”

Winter narrowed his eyes at him as he pulled the second bar free and let it drop. “If they find you, I will kill them.”

“What is this? Taken 4? Where’s Liam Neeson when you need him?” Tony groused. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the Cloak was still guarding the door and he turned to his phone. “FRI? Let Rhodey know that Winter is impatient and he’d better get his ass in gear.”

“I thought it was Winter is coming, boss,” FRIDAY said with open amusement. “And I’ve let him know. He said to keep Winter from doing anything too drastic.”

“Ha, ha,” Tony replied. “I’m not that kind of Stark. And I’ll do my best.”

Winter had just pulled off the third bar, making a gap that was feasibly big enough for him to fit through when the door to the room was smashed open by a wave of red. Tony gave a surprised shout and was immediately engulfed by the Cloak. It lifted him off the ground and barrelled straight towards the gap Winter had made in the window. Winter twisted out of the way of the shattering glass and the Cloak-wrapped Tony then raised his gun and fired into the room. A pain-filled screech and the subsequent blast of red light that flew out the window told him he’d hit her but unfortunately not fatally. He immediately ducked and rolled then flattened himself against the roof when he felt more than saw something swoop low over the top of him. 

“Stay down,” Rhodes barked and the next moment then was the roar of gunfire over his head.

Winter rolled down to the edge of the roof then over it, catching himself on the gutter before letting go in a controlled drop to the ground. “Where’s Tony?” he barked.

“Safe,” came Danny’s voice over the comms. “He’s with me. Winter, you’ve got five goons heading right for you. They’ll be coming round the corner of the building in about ten seconds.”

“Good,” Winter grunted as he raised his gun. He didn’t bother offering them any sort of amnesty when they rounded the corner and simply fired on them, dropping them like flies. Over his head, he could hear War Machine’s gunfire and then three people in robes like Strange’s ran past him and into the building. He was tempted to follow them but with Tony safe, he was reluctant to put himself at risk with the witch’s mind control

“Where else do you need me?” he said.

“There’s a group coming around the building to your left,” Danny said immediately. “Captain Marvel is inbound from the air as well.”

“You go left, I’ll go right,” Carol said, her voice terse and tight. “We’ll sandwich them between us.”

“Got it,” Winter replied before heading around the left side of the building at a run.

He gladly lost himself in the cut and thrust of the fight and didn’t shake himself out until the last of the goons was down and he heard Stephen curse over the comms.

“They got her out,” the sorcerer said tersely. They then heard him take a deep breath and let it out. When he continued he sounded calmer. “Or rather, she threw them at us to let her escape. We captured rather than killed since she was controlling them but she got away.”

“Which direction?” Winter barked.

“They had a car stashed away in another building,” Stephen replied. “You know that little car that’s almost ubiquitous on the streets here? One of those. Wong tried to track them but no luck.”

“So she got away,” Tony said over the comms and Winter could almost hear the relief from everyone else to hear his voice. “Damn. That’s not good.”

“I tagged her,” Winter said. “Not sure how bad though.”

“Side. Through and through,” Stephen replied. “From the positioning, not fatal and probably not debilitating as long as she gets medical treatment in the next few hours.”

“I’ll tell the Prague police to keep an eye out at the hospitals,” Carol said. “But we’ll have to assume she’ll find a way around that.”

There was a moment of silence as they all contemplated that. No doubt some poor sap of a local doctor was going to get a visit from the witch which he would not be permitted to refuse.

“Hey, Merlin, did she escape on her own?” Tony asked.

“No,” Stephen said. “There was one other person with her. I was unable to determine if he’s with her of his own accord or whether she’d compelling him.”

“It probably doesn’t matter much,” Tony replied. They could hear the same frustration they all felt in his voice. “Alright. Everyone come back. There’s not much we can do until we locate her again and I think it’d be a good idea to help with the clean up here.”

There was general agreement to that idea and Winter joined the others in returning to the plaza. The moment they did, he planted himself by Tony’s side and glared at anyone who suggested he do something else. Tony shot him some amused looks but didn’t argue. That surprised Winter at first but when he saw the way Rhodes relaxed at seeing him standing guard, he realised that Tony was accepting his presence more to placate his friend than because he wanted it or felt he needed it. Not because he disliked Winter but because he never felt he needed extra protection. Once he realised that, Winter started helping with whatever he could, though he never strayed far from Tony.

It was a little over an hour later that the local authorities indicated that they could handle everything from now on and the Avengers returned to their hotel. They were a sombre group due to Vision’s injury. There was nothing _they_ could do for Vision and Tony had already called in Dr Helen Cho to retrieve Vision and do whatever she could to help him. It was a blow because other than Stephen, Vision was their only other person who they were certain could combat Maximoff’s powers. Once again Winter stuck close to Tony and things only came to a head when he found himself outside Tony’s room as the man gave him an exasperated look.

“Were you planning on following me everywhere now?”

Winter considered that. “Yes.”

_Winter_ , Bucky said with a resigned sigh. _Really?_

Winter ignored Bucky’s comment and Tony’s spluttering and chivvied the man into the room. He pushed Tony against the wall beside the door. “Stay there.”

Again he ignored Tony’s audible annoyance and searched the luxurious suite. Only when he was satisfied that Maximoff wasn’t there did he return to find Tony standing where he’d left him, glare firmly in place, arms crossed over his chest and tapping one foot. Winter was the opinion that being in a snit made Tony look adorable.

_I’d dare you to say that to him_ , Bucky said dryly, _but if he rips your face off, I’ll suffer as well._

_Then hush_ , Winter replied. “It’s safe,” he announced.

“I am not some delicate little flower who needs to be protected,” Tony snapped. “I put up with your bodyguard act today because it made Rhodey relax but I’m not Whitney Houston and you’re definitely not Kevin Costner.”

Winter snorted. “He was a terrible bodyguard.”

“Not the point,” Tony growled. “I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

“I know,” Winter said in such a perfectly matter-of-fact tone that he actually derailed Tony’s growing ire.

“What?”

“I know you can look after yourself,” Winter said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it anyway.”

Tony blinked. “Why?”

Winter gave him a look that suggested he might be an idiot and was amused by the indignant huff Tony responded with. Finally Winter sighed. “Because I like you.”

It was as though Tony’s entire brain blue-screened as Clint might have put it. His face went blank and he stared at Winter with a lack of comprehension.

“Uh, what?” Tony finally squeaked.

“I like you,” Winter replied, blunt as always. “So does Bucky. So _we_ like you.” He cocked his head. “Isn’t it normal to want to protect people that you like?”

“You like me?” Tony said slowly.

“Yes.”

Tony frowned slightly as though he didn’t quite understand what Winter was saying. “You… _like_ me?”

Winter sighed and, ignoring Bucky’s irritated comments, he stalked forward and backed Tony up against the nearest wall. “We like you,” he repeated before rather gracelessly mashing their lips together.

_Oh, for fuck’s sake_ , Bucky said with exasperation. _Here. Let me._

Winter would have growled when Bucky muscled his way forward in their mind and took over except that he then immediately eased things up, tilted Tony’s head to a better angle then nibbled on the smaller man’s bottom lip before diving back in with a far better kiss that actually drew a little noise out of Tony that both Winter and Bucky wanted to hear many, many more times. When they finally parted, Tony looked dazed and just faintly debauched. Bucky eyed his handiwork with a smug grin.

_That’s how you do it_ , he said, that smugness carrying over.

Winter’s reply was lost when Tony suddenly blinked and licked his lips, his brain clearly coming back online. His eyes widened as he stared at Bucky and there was a faint pink tinge on his cheeks that Bucky rather liked.

“I… you… like me,” Tony said.

“Yup,” Bucky replied. “Me and Winter.”

“You _like_ me,” Tony repeated, still sounding baffled.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Uh, did I break you?”

“No!” Tony snapped then he frowned a little. “Well, maybe. Just a little. Aren’t you Rogers’ BFF?”

“I’m Stevie’s friend,” Bucky said with a nod. “I’m just not sure where Stevie is. I think he got lost back in the 40s along with the Bucky he knew.”

Tony’s jaw worked for a moment as he stared at Bucky. “Both of you like me?”

“I think we’d already established that,” Bucky replied. “But just to make sure you understand, yes, we both like you. A lot.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Winter’s been staring at your ass a lot too. I’m surprised you missed it.”

Tony made a small ‘eep’ sound. “Rhodey was right!”

“Huh,” Bucky replied. “So Winter was right. He said Rhodes knew. I didn’t know he’d said anything.”

“Rhodey was sick of the pining,” Tony said, seemingly on automatic because he then scowled. “You’re Captain America’s BFF.”

_You are, I’m not_ , Winter said with a snort.

_Shush._

“I’m… not sure why that’s relevant,” Bucky said slowly. “I think I’ve proven that I’m my own man.”

“Yes, you are,” Tony said then he gave himself a small shake. He began to look a little calmer and lot more speculative.

“Do you… like us?” Bucky said, suddenly concerned. “I mean, Winter…” He grimaced. “He’s not… quite up to speed on a lot of the social mores and he did sort of…”

“Aggressively kiss me?” Tony suggested.

“Yeah, that.”

“He wanted to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Bucky replied patiently. “So did I. Did you want us to kiss you?”

Tony raised an eyebrow and glanced down. Bucky followed his gaze then looked back up at Tony and frowned. “What?”

“You might have a metal arm but I’m pretty sure you don’t have metal balls,” Tony said dryly. “I could have stopped you if I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me.”

“Saying stop would have worked just as well,” Bucky said dryly. “Even Winter would listen to that.”

Tony scowled. “I just said I wanted you to kiss me.”

Bucky smirked and closed the gap between them. “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?”

Tony glared at up at him. “I really will knee you in the balls if you don’t stop that and get on with it. I want to be an active participant this time.”

“That sounds good to us,” Bucky said as he leaned in and pressed their lips together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winter's timing sucks. Also he needs to be socialised some more. He's just lucky he's got Bucky there to make up for it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the calm after the storm, information is exchanged and plans are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter out. It's been fighting me tooth and nail and I'm still not entirely happy with it. There's a lot of information in it and some of it is character's speculating or making guesses so don't be surprised if some of it turns out to be wrong in future chapters. Most it will start to be unpacked in future chapters so I guess this is in a way a transition chapter. Which is probably why it was fighting me so much.
> 
> And yes, there's a little bit of convenient timing in part of this chapter but, eh, it's my fic and I can do what I want. :P :D

It was the knock at the door that woke Bucky up. Or rather it was Winter hearing the knock at the door and poking him awake that woke him up. 

_Yeah, yeah, I’m awake_ , he grumbled at Winter as he looked down at Tony, who was curled up into his embrace on the bed.

They’d spent a long time just kissing earlier before the adrenaline crash made Tony wobbly on his feet. Bucky had then chivvied him into the shower and when he came out, all but poured him into bed. He’d have left then, content that they were more or less on the same page and willing to take things slowly, but Tony had pouted at him and neither he nor Winter had been able to hold out against those big, tired, pleading eyes. So he’d stripped down his underwear – he was _not_ wearing his combat gear to bed – and climbed into bed. Tony had clung to him like a limpet and after a few yawn-interrupted suggestive comments and some sleepy petting of the scarred skin where the metal arm joined the rest of Bucky’s body, he’d soon fallen asleep. Bucky hadn’t expected to get any sleep himself but the stress of the day had caught up to him and he’d dozed off as well.

Now he gently extricated himself from Tony’s arms, soothing the man when he whimpered and muttered some indistinct complaints. He quickly pulled on his pants and shirt and made his way over to the door, glancing at the clock as he did. They’d been asleep for about six hours. He opened it to find Rhodes outside. The Colonel looked surprised then his eyes narrowed as he took in Bucky’s appearance. Finally he sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I suppose you two were going to get a clue eventually,” he said dryly.

“We’ve had a clue for a while now,” Bucky said dryly. “It was Tony who was oblivious.”

“Point,” Rhodes said then his expression hardened. “You and Winter and I will have _words_ about this. I’m his best friend and I have a duty. But… later.”

Bucky paused for a moment then nodded. “Fine. Why later though?”

Rhodes peered inside. “Is he asleep?”

Bucky stood back and allowed Rhodes to enter. “He crashed not long after we got back.”

“And you got him to sleep for more than five minutes?” Rhodes said with mild surprise. He gave a nod of appreciation. “Good. We won’t wake him just yet but you’d better know what’s going on as well.”

Rhodes sat down and after a moment’s hesitation, Bucky did as well. “Why does that sound like trouble?”

“Because it is,” Rhodes said. “We tracked Maximoff to a doctor but we’ve lost her since then.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed and he could feel Winter paying close attention. “What happened?”

“She used her magic on a retired doctor to get him to patch her up.” Rhodes looked grim and Bucky braced himself for the worst. “Then when he was done, she convinced him to hang himself. We know it wasn’t a suicide because his daughter and grandchildren found him maybe an hour later. There was no note and no indicators that he was suicidal.”

“How do they know it was Maximoff?” Bucky demanded.

“She was seen entering the building by a neighbour.” Rhodes’ expression darkened. “After the daughter came running out, screaming for help, the neighbour told the police what she’d seen and they identified Maximoff from her description. They’ve bagged some of the medical detritus left behind and we’re getting it DNA tested to confirm it.”

“Fucking bitch,” Bucky growled, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Tony. 

“It gets worse,” Rhodes continued. 

“How so?”

“She and her accomplice have… appropriated a pilot and a private plane. They lodged a flight plan to Berlin but the plane disappeared off the radar shortly after take-off. We’re fairly sure they turned off the transponder rather than crashing because we’re not that lucky.”

“So we have no idea where they’re going?” Bucky said with a scowl.

“No,” Rhodes replied. He looked tired as he swept a hand down his face. “I wanted to get everything Tony heard and saw while he was there but if he’s sleeping then it can wait.”

Bucky nodded. “What happens now?”

“Carol and I will stay behind and handle anything that still needs to be done,” Rhodes replied. “The rest of you can go home but I’d imagine Tony’s going to want to see what Dr Cho’s doing with Vision.”

“I’ll go with him,” Bucky said immediately and got an approving look from Rhodes for his trouble.

“Good. Thank you.” Rhodes sighed with exasperated fondness. “He’s an absolute pain about accepting anything remotely resembling a bodyguard but somehow I think he’ll let you come along.”

If he’d still been the Bucky Barnes of seventy years ago, he might actually have blushed at that. Now both he and Winter just logged it as useful information that they’d need to keep their personal idiot safe. He was pretty confident they could call Tony their personal idiot after the previous night.

“Was it HYDRA with her? Everyone else, I mean,” he asked. “I know the guy on the stage, the one I killed, was HYDRA.”

Rhodes nodded. “We caught enough of them at the warehouse to confirm that. Unfortunately, they didn’t know what Maximoff’s plans were other than targeting Tony. The only thing we did learn was that HYDRA wanted Tony alive and… pliable.”

Bucky growled and Winter echoed that, along with a few choice words, in his head. “That’s what Maximoff was supposed to do.”

“That’s what she was _supposed_ to do,” Rhodes said grimly. “Not what she _wanted_ to do. The ones we caught were adamant about that, that she had plans of her own, and kind of scared at the same time.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“HYDRA apparently have some way of controlling the witch,” Rhodes said. “Maybe from when she was first working for them.”

“You’re assuming she ever stopped,” Bucky growled.

From the way Rhodes blinked, he could see that that hadn’t occurred to the Colonel. He knew it would have eventually but Rhodes was still too focussed on what he needed to do right now to start unravelling everything else.

“You think she didn’t?”

“Makes a sick kind of sense, doesn’t it?” Tony said from the doorway of the bedroom, startling all of them.

Tony looked tired and rather mussed, though he had at least pulled on some pants and a shirt. Bucky wasn’t sure if it was lack of sleep to blame for the first part or the topic of conversation but he knew he was absolutely to blame for the second and even under the circumstances, he felt rather smug about that.

“How do you mean?” Rhodes asked.

“Who is HYDRA’s greatest enemy and who would they just _love_ to subvert?” Tony said. 

He hesitated for a moment then he came over and sat down next to Bucky. For his part, Bucky immediately erased that hesitancy by wrapping an arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulling him close. Even as the realisation of what Tony meant burst into life, he still felt pleased when Tony snuggled in to him.

“Stevie,” he said heavily.

“You think she’s been manipulating him?” Rhodes asked, frowning heavily.

Bucky snorted. “She wouldn’t have had to. Well, maybe she did a bit in the beginning to make him overlook the HYDRA thing but after that…” He shook his head. “I saw how she acted around him. Made herself look small and weak, batted her eyelids at him and looked up at him through her eyelashes. Her sweet little innocent girl act.” He snorted. “Stevie would fall for that any day. He only ever wanted to be a hero, like his Ma told him his Dad was.”

“So being her protector…” Rhodes shook his head. “Yeah, okay, I can see it.”

“You think she wasn’t getting her little red fingers into his head?” Tony said sceptically.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You think she was.”

Tony nodded. “I know she was. To some extent anyway. At least I do now. I had all sorts of sensors built into the Compound, mostly to alert if something goes wrong, including some energy sensors that actually do pick up Maximoff’s powers. Not the reason I put them in, that’s just a side effect. I adjusted them to take into account Maximoff’s powers when it was obvious Rogers wasn’t going to listen to me about bringing her into the Avengers, otherwise she’d have been setting them off left, right and centre. Then I never really thought about them again. Anyway, they might not have been setting off alerts when Maximoff was using her powers but they were recording. I had FRIDAY go back and examine the readings after we realised she was still alive. It’s taken a bit of time to do all the correlation and examine the video to confirm things but she’s got some results. I saw the notification on my phone when I woke up.” He placed his phone on the table in front of them. “Tell ‘em, FRI.”

“Maximoff was using her powers on a regular basis,” FRIDAY said. “More so when she first moved in but there was never actually a single day when she didn’t use them. In the beginning, the readings were highest when Rogers and Romanov were in the room but after a few months, that usage tailed off to what I would call a ‘maintenance level’ for Rogers.”

“Not the Widow though?” Bucky said.

“No,” FRIDAY replied. “She seemed to have to work much harder to keep Romanov in line.”

“Could they use this to get a free pass on their sentences?” Rhodes asked, looking rather sour.

“I don’t think so, Colonel,” FRIDAY replied. “And you’re the reason why.”

It took a moment for that to sink in then Rhodes looked incandescent with rage. “She was fucking with my mind?”

“Yes, Colonel,” FRIDAY replied, a little apologetically. “Her usage levels were easily the same as that for the Widow and only got higher the more you worked with them. I reviewed the video footage after finding that out, mostly from after you’d left the Compound, and when she was in private, she would seem… frustrated.”

“So… she can’t control, she can only influence,” Bucky said with a slow nod. “But a person’s pre-existing opinions can override her influence.”

“That’s my guess,” Tony replied. He then gave Rhodes a lop-sided smile. “And she couldn’t convince my Rhodey bear that I was evil incarnate.”

Rhodes snorted and looked amused. “If I didn’t think that after Spring Break in Mexico in ‘89, I’m never going to.”

Tony grinned and looked up at Bucky. “Do not give my platypus tequila. Bad things happen.”

“Very bad things,” Rhodes said dryly. “Howard-sized bad things.”

Tony snorted. “Howard had to come and bail us out.” There was a look of impish amusement in his eyes that seemed to mitigate the usual confusion of pain and anguish and anger that were the usual predominant emotions when Howard was mentioned, even now. “He wasn’t even that angry. Apparently we got him out of some presentation or meeting he didn’t want to go to. I mean, he was still pissed at us… _me_ mostly… but he was just rehashing old shit instead of adding in new shit.”

“He was still a piece of crap to both of us,” Rhodes said and it was staunchly clear whose side he was on and Bucky had an inkling of why Rhodes and Tony’s friendship was one for the ages, even more so than his and Stevie’s.

“Yeah,” Tony admitted. “But he did have to pay a lot of money to not only get us out of prison and the country but also make sure the tabloids didn’t get wind of it. So… he may have had a point.” He grinned at Rhodes. “Just a little point though.”

Rhodes grumbled under his breath but seemed to concede the point. “Tequila is still evil and banned from my presence.”

Tony snickered for a moment then sobered again. “FRIDAY’s sent all of the readings and her analysis to the Accords Council and they’re getting it checked out by some independent experts. I’ve no doubts they’ll agree with my girl though.”

“And then?” Bucky asked.

“Not sure yet,” Tony replied.

“I’ve been listening in on the Accords Council and it looks like they’re considering moving Rogers to more secure location,” FRIDAY reported.

“FRI,” Tony said sternly. “We’ve talked about eavesdropping, haven’t we?”

“Yes, boss,” FRIDAY said with a marked lack of remorse. “But under the circumstances, I thought it was wise to know which way they were looking like going.”

“It’s a bit hard to argue with that,” Tony said wryly. “Even though I know I probably should.”

“I don’t do it all the time,” FRIDAY said. “It’s just… it’s about Maximoff and Rogers. They’re dangerous and they’ve hurt you before, boss. I won’t let them do so again.”

Tony looked rather nonplussed but Rhodey chuckled. “It’s your own fault, Tones. You create these AIs, turn them loose so they can learn and then love them unconditionally. Why are you always so surprised when they love you back?”

Tony blushed and Rhodey’s grin widened for a moment before he sobered again.

“But back to what I was saying before we got side-tracked,” he said. He paused for a moment then caught Tony up to speed before continuing. “HYDRA did have a way of keeping the witch under control. The people we caught weren’t specific as to how, just that they could.”

“I sense a ‘but’ there,” Tony said dryly.

“And a big one too,” Rhodey replied. “They also said that she’s found a way around it. So while she was _supposed_ to just make you pliable, she apparently had different ideas.”

Tony shuddered and Bucky pulled him closer. It helped to stop Winter from growling and howling his fury and anger at the witch.

“What was she going to do?” Bucky snarled.

“They didn’t know,” Rhodey replied. “Just that she had different ideas and they were afraid of her. They had plans to inform their leaders that she’d found a way around the control.”

“I wish we knew what that was,” Tony mused.

Bucky frowned as he and Winter reviewed what they seen. “The necklace?” he finally said.

Rhodey also frowned. “The what?”

“FRI? Can you show us any visuals you have from the attack?” Tony said.

“Of course, boss.”

The TV lit up and split into four separate sections to show different viewpoints from CCTV and personal cameras the Avengers had been wearing. The images flickered through quickly then stopped on one that widened to take up the whole screen. In it, Maximoff was clearly shown and she was indeed wearing a necklace. Though when they took a closer look, it was more like a choker. It looked to be made of velvet ribbon with a ruby – or some sort of fake ruby-like stone – at the front.

“No wonder she hated the restraining collar, beyond the fact it contained her powers to herself,” Rhodey mused. “It reminded her of _HYDRA’s_ control.”

Bucky, who had been eyeing the necklace with more than a little distaste and fear, found himself abruptly shunted aside by Winter. 

“They don’t let any weapon loose without control. The witch would have been no different.”

Tony blinked and looked up at him, at first with surprise and then with understanding. “That sounds like their modus operandi.” He paused. “You okay with this discussion, Snowflake? I know you have absolutely no good memories of HYDRA.”

Winter was actually startled by the question and then rather baffled.

_Of course he cares_ , Bucky said. _Did you expect anything less?_

_But we’re fine._

_That doesn’t matter to him. He’s still concerned because this is HYDRA and we hate them and we’re afraid of them. Afraid they’ll take us back and control us again._

Winter still seemed nonplussed so Bucky nudged forward and took control. “You got him all discombobulated.”

Tony blinked. “Who uses discombobulated these days?”

“Me,” Bucky said, broadening his Brooklyn accent for that single word. “It was all the rage at one point. Anyway, he… gets tripped up sometimes when people care about his comfort.”

“Of course I do,” Tony said with a frown.

“Before this gets sidetracked again,” Rhodey said. He sighed and ran an hand down his face. “If I thought either of you would accept it, I’d have someone with you at all times but I know you’d both circumvent that in a heartbeat so since you’ve both gotten your respective heads out of your respective asses about each other, you can watch each other’s backs.”

“She’s going to come after me again,” Tony said with a grimace. 

“And now she’s free of whatever control HYDRA had over her so we can’t assume anything,” Rhodes added. “Look, there’s nothing more we can do now. Get some more rest then go see Vision. We’ll have more information and will be able to make better plans once we’re all back at the Compound.”

Tony nodded and as Rhodey left, he allowed Bucky to drag him back to the bedroom.


End file.
